


Stay a Little Later

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Backstory Swap, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Prompt Bracket Fic, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 02:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: “Will?” She suppresses a smile.“You two know each other?”“No,” the smile peeks out, “we met last night, hopped the proverbial fence, had a drink down the street.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same verse as ‘[Spidey Sense](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14601840)’. This wasn’t supposed to happen and when it did, it was supposed to be a fun little tryst, then the feels got involved. Honestly, I should’ve just written this to begin with, but I’m trying to figure out the one-shot quick fic fix thing again so it was worth a try.
> 
> Warnings for alcohol consumption, sex (all fade to black, sorry not sorry I’d never get this posted if I had to write that much sex), and minor language. Mentions of smoking, non-monogamy, abusive behavior particularly toward children, war, minor character death, and cancer treatment. Despite all that this is definitely more angsty than dark and less angsty than you’d think to boot.

Say that you're the one who's taking me home  
'Cause I want you on my skin and my bones  
Knocking me off my feet  
*  
Just wanna talk a little longer  
So baby won't you wanna stay a little later?  
'Cause I could watch you watch me forever  
— _Alone_ , Jessie Ware

  
 

There’s a series of straight lines between here and where she’d been a week ago: Karachi to Lahore to London to New York, Coop to Jim to her, between the show, the network, and the awards she knew nothing about, the charmingly old brick building, the patio she’s snuck out to, and the cigarette she’s digging out of her bra because it’d seemed more expedient to stash them there instead of trying to hide them in the tiny bag she’d had to buy to hold her things. The venue she’d figured would be smoke free; she couldn’t imagine the smoking ban had gotten any less restrictive in the time since she’d gone overseas, and she hadn’t wanted them confiscated. It’s a habit she’ll be hard pressed to lose, even if she knows she won’t be headed back to the Middle East or Asia any time soon, even if Coop hadn’t told her that yet.

The timing of their return to the States had been too conspicuous, too close to the end of the show’s run. It was a kindness on Coop’s part, but it felt like unnecessarily cruel theatrics when she knew how performative it was, when she knew he was trying to do her the only favor he could because his hands were almost as tied as hers. They’d promoted her to EP, let her slash her salary, cut her staff, changed the broadcast time. The show had decent ratings but if the network wasn’t interested, the network wasn’t interested. That was fine, the problem was it wasn’t just the show they didn’t have much interest in, and that’s what Coop couldn’t bring himself to tell her.

She’s been back in the States for six days and she hasn’t heard a word from him. She knew it was because he’d been hunting for another job for her and hadn’t been able to find anything. Jim would be easier to place, he was less experienced, more malleable in their eyes; her name had been on everything, the broadcasts and the requisition forms. She’d have to let Jim go. That wouldn’t be news Coop would be breaking to her. Jim was the one thing that kept her tethered, not in any dramatic sense of the word, but they trusted each in a way she didn’t trust anyone else. She’d picked him on a whim, trusted her gut, and hadn’t parted with him since.

Hadn’t parted with him in the last week until tonight when he’d locked the door behind her as she’d picked her way down the stairs of their Jersey motel.

“Got a light?” She turns to the form of a man slipping out of the door behind her, nebulous in the forbidden darkness. It’s a risk, giving herself away this early, but there wasn’t much of a reason to be out here in the cold otherwise, not with the bar inside.

“Got a smoke?”

“They’re cheap.” She warns him, fishing out another cigarette and lighting up when a flame flickers in the dark. 

“I wasn’t sure I was going to make it another five minutes.”

She doesn’t recognize the laugh but she recognizes the voice even with it’s added inflection.

“ACN right? I can’t believe they screwed you.”

“That’s not important.” He considers obviously amused. “Not really.”

“Really?” She’s not particularly skeptical. She’s not expecting him to be completely honest with her. He doesn’t know who she is, why she’s here, or what she might be thinking. He has to be a good sport about it, but even so it doesn’t sound like he minds too much.

“I didn’t see you up there. Is that why you’re hiding out here?”

She snorts at that, at the idea that she cares about the awards or the people inside. Jim would tell her to play nice, but nice was something she saved for the job and the people she cared about. “My boss thought I could use some training in proper manners.”

“Jerk.”

She smirks shaking her head. “How about yours?”

“He’s inside. Getting drunk, most likely.”

“There’s not enough alcohol in there.”

“You scoped out the place.”

“I’m in the most uncomfortable outfit I could find running errands for my boss.”

“Jerk.” He says again, this time with a little more venom and she smiles.

“There has to be a bar down the street or a reception I can crash with an open bar.”

“That sounds dire.”

“Maybe.” She shrugs with a shiver, glaring at the smattering of snow hidden in the darkness. “At the very least like something strong enough to warm me up.”

“I’ve got a twenty year old bottle of Elijah Craig.”

“Fancy.” She’s a little bit dismissive. It doesn’t sound like he’s showing off. It doesn’t come across like he’s bragging, but she’s never understand the need for overkill, never particularly appreciated what most people would consider a discerning palate.

“Fancy drink for a fancy lady.”

“Oh god.” She laughs. “Usually you get a decent look at someone before you invite them back to your place.”

“I saw you sneak out here.” He confesses with a chuckle that echoes her own. “And you seem to know who I am.”

“They like you in Pakistan, you know, Mr. McAvoy.”

“All right then.” He says it like it’s settled, like she’s already made up her mind, which isn’t exactly untrue. She’s not in the mood to be discerning, not that she ever was, but normally she was more careful than this, was always so careful, never locals, never journalists, almost never Americans, no one with ties to the East Coast, but this wasn’t a bar in some far flung city or a half-assed trip to a Western military installation. She was cold and annoyed, soon to be unemployed; she wanted a drink and she didn’t drink alone.

“I’ll have to tell my boss I’m stepping out, but then it’s you and me and enough of the good stuff to start a fire.”

*

She waits out front while he pops back inside and then they’re in a cab, both smiling, both trying not to get caught sneaking glances, but by the time they make it into the elevator in his building he’s dropped the pretense.

“You’re glowing.” He grins at her and she musters a put on frown.

“Literally.” She plucks at the dress, at the dancing sequins glued to the lace trying not to make it any scratchier than it was and his look turns a bit sympathetic.

“You can have whatever you find in the bedroom.”

There isn’t much there. It’s more than she’s used to seeing, but it’s spartan, she knows, and she figures he doesn’t need much to get by with a whole wardrobe team behind him at the office. There’s mostly t-shirts and jeans but there are a couple of dress shirts, one of which is hanging on the closet door knob so she slips it on, hanging her dress in its place before sauntering back out to the living room.

It’s a predictable evening, one more carefully polished than what she’s expecting, this certainly wasn’t a bathroom in a bar or a hotel back alley, but it’s not wholly original either: drinks and flirting, he makes her laugh a couple of times before she decides he’s worked hard enough and kisses him, lets him press her back against the wall, lets him take her to bed, lets him—

Blow her mind feels like the worst sort of hyperbole but she can’t help but think it’s true; she blames that on the bourbon, the really good bourbon it turns out, and the fact she hasn’t had five minutes alone, hasn’t had any amount of privacy for weeks now. She blames it on New York climate control, comfortingly warm after her jaunt outside, and the fact that his bed has the best mattress she’s had the pleasure of acquainting herself with in years.

She filters through the excuses as she slips back into her dress, face screwed up in annoyance as she sets his shirt back into place. He’d told her it looked better on her, but she’s heard that line before and it wasn’t as if she had an excuse for its sudden appearance, not that Jim wouldn’t know; he always knew. 

She blames it on the bourbon and the bed and anything else she can think of because there’s no way there’s a man that good with his hands, that good with his tongue, not one who’s funny and sincere, not one who’s going to be disappointed despite himself when he wakes up alone because she’s in bar down the street having another drink before heading back to New Jersey.

*

“You have to call him back.” Jim hasn’t mentioned the night before, hasn’t mentioned her late return, but he has mentioned that someone keeps calling him looking for her.

“You could tell him I’m here.”

Jim looks at her like she’s stupid, like she must think he’s stupid if she thinks he’s going to try something like that.

“You could give him my number.”

“I can’t make you talk to him.”

“Yet you keep trying.”

“I—” he groans and falls back onto his bed. “Have you at least called Coop?”

“Called Coop, left a message, called Coop again, left another message. He’ll call back when he has something to say.”

“Like Charlie.”

“Is that who’s calling, Charlie? Skinner, right?” She considers the information staring up at the ceiling. “Did he say what he wants?”

“I told you— No.” Jim sighs as she glances over at him.

“Next time he calls tell him I’m at the Times Square Diner.”

“Will you be?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” She flashes him a grin. “I won’t be here though and it’s still too early for the bar.”

“Can I come with?”

“You’re supposed to be working.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Yeah, well.” She sighs. “Tell him I’m out.”

*

“You don’t look surprised.”

“You have shit timing.” She tells him chewing on another fry, watching the way he’s studying her, waiting, she assumes, for a reaction.

“You talked to Coop?”

“No.” She scoops up a dollop of ketchup. “He’s still hoping he doesn’t have to break the news to me.”

Charlie frowns, considers, and she sighs, takes pity on him and explains working through the last of her fries. “I’ve known Coop a long time. He’s predictable. Our show got canned, that’s fine. It’s happened before. Trouble is I have a bit of a reputation. No one wants me.”

“A reputation?”

He doesn’t sound surprised which doesn’t surprise her, whatever he’s up to he’s obviously talked to Coop. “I tend to have a problem shutting up when I think something’s important. It pisses off corporate. It makes the advertisers twitchy.”

“I have a show that could use a bit of spunk.”

“Do you have an anchor willing to put up with me?”

“He likes a good debate.”

“Was that Coop’s glowing review of my performance?” She laughs to herself, amused that he hadn’t mustered stronger words.

“He said the network’s given you permission to look elsewhere.”

“That’s news to me.” She considers her empty plate before she considers his offer impassively. “When do I meet this anchor of yours?”

“I was hoping to catch you last night at the show and introduce you, but Will ran off and you disappeared.”

“Will?” She suppresses a smile.

“You two know each other?”

“No,” the smile peeks out, “we met last night, hopped the proverbial fence, had a drink down the street.”

“He’s looking for an EP.”

“He didn’t mention that.”

Charlie raises his eyebrows, his gaze more discerning now.

“We didn’t talk much. I didn’t exactly hang around.”

***

 

Will she thinks might have second guessed the entire thing if she hadn’t been there then, that morning, as news was breaking. He had an EP, a producer brought up from DC, but it’d been breaking news, what could have been big news and she’d been there.

Jim being Jim had protested. That’s why she’d brought him along. She’d known there was a chance she wasn’t being objective, knew Jim would speak up, but she also knew he wanted this as much as she did, another chance to prove themselves, so when Will agrees, when he agrees without much hesitation, they’re off to the races and the days slip past. She finds an apartment, buys silverware and hand towels, swaps out a hastily purchased parka for shorts and t-shirts.

She’s still wearing her usual blouses, all button downs, and dress pants, always with a belt, always with oxfords or brogues, even after she meets Wade who she knows wishes she would try more. More meaning skirts or whatever else he thinks makes her more appealing to the public en masse but even that doesn’t last long because it doesn’t take him long to figure out he doesn’t need to impress her, that she doesn’t need to impress him for him to call her up when she gets out of work to ask her for a night out, a night out that almost always ended up meaning a night in, the promised dinner, movie, or shopping excursion replaced by simple carnal bliss.

It’s a cyclical thing, a well worn pattern by early fall so she knows when she asks Will out for a drink that Wade won’t be calling, that he has other plans on Friday nights contrary to what Will seems to think.

He’d looked skeptical even as he’d accepted her invitation without protest, so now they’re sitting a couple of blocks from his apartment in the bar she knew served decent beer and her favorite whiskeys taking the piss out of each other just a bit.

“Careful,” she warns him when he asks her if she wants another drink. “Jim’s had to drag me down off a table a couple of times.”

He looks skeptical, looks like he can’t quite square her proper producer persona with a woman he’d find dancing drunk in a dive bar, but he smiles when she nods with a laugh.

“It’s been a while. I’ve been trying to behave. I’m not sure Wade would have the first clue what to do with me.”

“His other girlfriends are pretty tame?”

She knows he means past girlfriends, but she’s had a couple of drinks and she’s come to trust Will, not in the way she trusts Jim, not with her life, but she trusts his discretion and his honesty so she laughs a little and says, “the brunette’s much too tame for that. She’s probably already in bed.”

“Although,” she makes a show of checking her watch and then shakes her head, “maybe not yet, not quite. He likes to keep her up.”

She looks up to smirk at Will, watch the way he’s turning this new information over.

“You’re still— You OK with that?”

She nods and then shrugs. It’s a genuine question, not an accusation so she takes another sip of her drink and answers. “He told me when we met. And she knows, the brunette. He’s been dating her for years. She wants two and a half kids and a nice house somewhere. She doesn’t mind Wade having someone to call in the middle of the night. Wade, he likes having someone who gets off work at nine, who’s still up when he calls around midnight and I’m,” she pauses to consider. “It’s minimal effort and I’m OK with that.”

It’s easier, less risky than picking up guys in bars is what she means. She doesn’t want to risk her reputation, not with the job she has now, not with how much she enjoys it and she doesn’t mind that Wade’s a little confused, a little in love, that it’s all going to come back on him if things go south, that it’s all going to come back on him anyway because she’s never expected the Disney fairytale she knows he thinks she does.

“We’ve all been tested.” She says with a smile bigger than it needs to be, knowing Will won’t have forgotten her careful assurances that first night: six weeks then six months. She’d never seen any reason to be coy about it.

“Poster child.” He teases taking a swig of his beer and she grins back at him knowing he’d been a little uncomfortable with how forward she’d been, how blunt and matter of fact, but blunt was easy when blunt meant safe, when blunt meant she was more likely to get an answer when she asked.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re cute when you’re trying not to blush?” She bites her lip and hides a smile around the rim of her glass, knowing her eyes have lit up mischievously when he shakes his head at her.

“That would be you, so no, no one’s mentioned that.”

“Well they should.” She insists and he hums amused and, to her relief, not at all put off by the turn their conversation has taken.

“You’re feisty tonight.”

“I told you I like to get drunk and dance on tables.” She’s still teasing, playing it up because that’s not something she’s ever made a habit of but even so she knows it’s not something he believes one way or the other.

“I—” she stops and turns to look over her shoulder, back toward the door, raising a hand in tepid greeting when she realizes who’s been boring a hole in the back of her head.

“Hey Tasha.”

“Mac? I thought that was you. God it’s been ages. Hi.” She turns to Will, expectant, waiting and Mac gestures, fills in the gaps.

“Will’s a colleague. Will this is Tasha, we went to school together.”

“Have we met?” Tasha has the typical frown, the one Mac knows Will reads as fan, so he’s polite, holds out his hand with a smile.

“It’s possible.”

“It’s just,” Tasha tosses her head, hair russling against her shoulders. “Mac turned around so fast I thought maybe you recognized me, said something.”

“Oh,” Will’s smile grows warmer. “That’s Mac for you.”

“Yeah.”

Tasha clearly doesn’t understand what he’s implying but Mac doesn’t offer an explanation. She’d always been good at reading a room, had grown up familiar with that particular feeling of unease, but she’d honed the skill overseas long after she and Tasha had spent any real time together face to face. “I thought you’d be at home enjoying your privacy.”

Tasha grins at that, at the implication. “He tell you he was out with Jules?”

“No.” Mac manages, almost, to suppress a smile. “She still thinks I’m getting the short end of the stick.”

“I keep telling her he’s the one missing out. With the two of you—”

Mac shakes her head, grins a little. “Categorically disinterested.”

“God really?” Tasha shakes her head then seems to remember herself. “I’m sorry I’m standing here yammering I should let you to get back to your drinks.”

“We were almost done.” Will offers her another smile and Mac bites her lip to hide her own.

“If you were waiting for a table you can take ours.” Mac offers smoothly watching Tasha’s face break into a grin.

“I don’t want to—”

“No,” Mac assures her, “Will’s an old man. He gets cranky if he doesn’t get his beauty sleep.”

“Charitable.” Will shakes his head at her with a chuckle as he slips from his seat. “It was nice to meet you Tasha.”

*

“I’d like another drink.” She says before he can offer, “but not if you’re worried about fucking me while I’m drunk.”

“I invited you up.” He proceeds with a caution that makes her want to laugh.

“I invited myself up to take advantage of your open bar policy. You agreed.”

“And to find your way into my bed.”

“It’s not an original story. So I don’t want you to worry. I’ll take a repeat performance sober or drunk.” She tells him flatly and he laughs at that, a short amused sound as he shakes his head.

“Are you always this forward?”

“You’re a nice guy.” She doesn’t answer him, waiting to see if he’ll press the issue.

“And nice guys are prone to regret.”

“Something like that.” She agrees and he nods, pouring a drink.

“I assume that’s why you brought up Wade?”

“Could be.”

“Mac.” He shakes his head at her a little, playfully, and she frowns a bit.

“I’m not trying to be opaque.”

“I know.” He smiles, reassuringly she notices, as he takes a seat on the couch, watching as she slips into the opposite corner, turned toward him so she can watch him swallow, slowly making headway on his drink before reaching to pass it to her.

“It’s why I mentioned Jules, the brunette.” She considers the glass in her hand, she doesn’t need to look up at him to know his smile has faded to something soft and understanding. “Wade doesn’t know we know each other, or,” she shakes her head correcting herself, “we both know Tasha. He took me to a party, a department thing, our photo ended up in the newsletter, Jules showed Tasha.”

She gestures to Will to fill in the blanks, then tucks her legs up onto the couch so she can lean to hand him back his drink.

“Back in August.” She watches the corners of his eyes crinkle. “You wore the scratchy dress.”

“It’s the only one I have.” She frowns at him, a little annoyed at how amused he sounds.

“What about the Association dinner?”

“Wardrobe.” She shrugs and he slides closer, taps her shoulder, before laying his hand on her knee and she realizes she’s being a little defensive, shoulders pulled up, tense, in a way they didn’t need to be.

“I for one like pants.” The glass he’s holding settles on the table behind her. “Bare ankles can be distractingly sexy.”

That was the shoes she wants to tell him, the socks she never wore, not the pants, but the semantics aren’t important right now, not with the way his hand is creeping down toward her ankle.

“OK.” She hadn’t intended for him to get away with this that easily; she hadn’t wanted to make him work for it, hadn’t wanted to scare him off, but she hadn’t been expecting how quickly she would melt under his touch, how quickly she’s caught up in the memory of his hands on her skin, the feeling of his hands on her skin now.

“Can I...off?”

“Pants, yes. You, no. That’s for later.” He grins at a her a little cocky as she fumbles with the knot she’d used to tie her belt. “We have all night for that.”

***

 

When Wade shows up, when Wade’s a little pissed she’s not surprised. She hadn’t expected things to end well, had known from the beginning that they wouldn’t. Wade wasn’t someone who looked too far past himself, she’d known that, known the way he saw her was just another projection of himself but it still pisses her off a bit when he levels his accusations at her.

“Go home to Jules and apologize for whatever dumbass shit you said that landed you here.” She tells him calmly. “She loves you and she deserves at least that much.”

“Is that it then, you’re in love with the other guy you’re fucking? Is that it?”

“I’m not in love with anyone. I never was. Is that the problem?” She doesn’t pause to consider his possible response. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t need to. “I never loved you Wade. I never intended to. If you want to call me a bitch for that that's fine, but don't pretend you can get mad and chew me out and expect that that's going to fix anything. There’s nothing to fix.”

“You—” he starts to level at her but she shakes her head.

“Go home Wade. I’m sorry you’re upset but not sorry enough that I won’t have security drag you out of here.”

*

“He was pretty upset?” 

It’s a guess but she nods anyway. “Jim told you he was here?”

“You disappeared.”

“Yeah.” She sits perched on the edge of his desk. “He’s a little pissed he’s the only one who thinks I’m in love with him.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I know. I just,” she looks down then glances over at him. “He was planning on surprising me for Valentine’s.”

She feels bad about that, guilty that she hadn’t been clearer, but there hadn’t been much more she could’ve said other than Wade I don’t love you, other than Wade you’re wasting your time, but it hadn’t been a waste of time, not for her and so she hadn’t said anything, hadn’t thought much of saying anything until now, until Jules was home alone and the image of Wade staring at her like he doesn’t know who she is is stuck in her head.

“Well that’s a shit surprise.”

“Yeah.” She sighs and he shifts closer.

“Want a drink? No funny business.”

“What if I like funny business?”

“There’s a special Valentine’s surcharge. You’ll have to watch _Rudy_.”

“That’s not romantic. Gary says it makes everyone cry.”

“You talked to Gary about _Rudy_?”

She tries not to smile at how delighted he sounds, but it’s hard to grumble when he looks so pleased. “You wouldn’t shut up about it.” Softer. “I was curious.”

“That’s a hundred and sixteen minutes of pregaming.” He says with a smirk that’s deliberately suggestive.

“That’s almost,” she pauses, fumbling with the math, “two hours. There’s not enough whiskey—”

“I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Now you’re being a tease.” She says, smiling despite herself, because he is. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of her and with the way he’s looking at her they’re not going to make it past the opening credits and she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care that it’s been months since she’d thought about doing this again. She doesn’t care that there’s a good chance he’s only offering because he knows it’s a shitty deal, the breakup she never asked for, and he’s only trying to help. She doesn’t care that she hasn’t stopped to think about this potentially being a horrible idea, because he’s offering and that’s more than enough for right now. It usually was.

***

 

“Do me a favor?”

It's the fact that it's a question that makes her look up from the report she's combing through. “Sure.”

“Let me buy you a fancy dress and take you out to dinner.”

“I can buy—” she's offering before she can think through the implications of what he's asking.

“I know it's an imposition—”

“That's not— it's fine.”

“I know it's not really your idea of a fun time.”

They throw the conversation back and forth, the volleys tumbling over one another. 

“I’d really appreciate it.” He suggests and she relents, knowing regardless of what she says he’s made his case and won’t keep pressing.

“OK.”

*

She isn’t sure what he’d meant when he’d said fancy dress, isn’t sure if she’s supposed to expect him to reimburse her, so she invites him along, lets him pick out a place to start because she figures he knows more about this sort of thing than she does.

He does know more than she does which is how she ends up standing in the middle of a boutique surrounded by dresses she knows are well outside her price range.

“Will?”

“Are we looking for something you can scale the Empire State Building in or,” he gestures vaguely, not at all concerned by the way she’s frowning.

“No sequins, no glitter.”

“No itchy.”

She smiles at that and reaches out tentatively to brush her fingers against the skirt of a dress hanging on a nearby rack. It’s the fluffy ballerina stuff she thinks, although she knows it’s not, knows it has a name she’s never bothered learning. She’s always been put off by the impracticality of more feminine clothes and had left any thought of them behind for the better part of a decade.

“I could buy a tie and a blazer,” she offers as the saleswoman bustles out from the back. It’s not the first time she’d offered. Will hadn’t seemed to mind the thought but she knows she’d hate that too. She didn’t want to be buttoned up, tressed up.

“Let’s give this a try.”

She goes back to frowning. She’s here because she’s curious, not because she think it’s going to work, and it doesn’t, at first, seem like it’s going to, but Will’s clear on what he thinks they’re looking for, insistent in a way that doesn’t leave much room for argument, so no one starts suggesting she start trying on anything too poofy or too slinky.

She tries looking, pulling some of the dresses out, peeking at a few, but she spends most of her time in the dressing room, shuffling in and out as Will and the saleswoman comb through the store.

Will’s the one who finds the dress. She can’t hear much from the other side of the dressing room door but she knows it must’ve been him by the way he smiles at her a little conspiratorially as he hands it to her. It’s a dark, rich blue, a little brighter than she would’ve picked out for herself, but she likes the way it’s cut: high in the front, with a low back, sleeveless, with a slender tie at the neck.The skirt’s full, in a swishy sort of way but it’s not uncomfortable in the way she’s expecting as she wiggles into the dress. 

It’s a good color she decides, frowning at the tri-panelled mirror, finally getting a proper look at the dress, at the sudden surprising shimmer. The top portion is beaded, tiny silver beads sparkling in the overhead lights, a couple of rhinestones tucked into the middle of the swirling pattern.

“You’re really funny.” She announces, but she’s smiling when she steps out into the main part of the store. She knows she is even before she sees his face.

“That one?” He leaves it as a question, but it’s clear what he thinks.

“You know I was joking when I said I was going to unpack my shalwar kameezes.”

He shrugs as she reaches up to touch the beadwork, trace the familiar swirls. They’re not an exact replica of any pattern she knows, but it’s reminiscent of something familiar enough that it settles her misgivings.

“I like this one.”

*

Dinner is what she expects it to be, expensive and drawn out into courses, but Will seems to genuinely enjoy himself despite her occasional fidgeting, is still enjoying himself when she can’t help but press her lips to his in the elevator on the way up to his place.

She’s expecting a chaste kiss, a bit of a tease, but by the time they make it into his apartment proper things have heated up and he’s tugging impatiently at the tie tucked under the hair she’d left loose around her shoulders in contrast to her usual ponytail.

He stops, his hands stilling for a second, and she takes advantage of the momentary reprieve to wiggle the rest of the way out of the dress, letting it pool at her feet so she’s standing there wearing a satisfied smile and a thong because he clearly wasn’t expecting this.

“You can’t wear a bra with a dress like that, not a regular one anyway, and I already had to buy the underwear. Sloan said panty lines are a buzzkill, and I had to draw the line somewhere. I couldn’t spend all afternoon shopping.”

“Sloan?”

That seems to be the only thing he’s heard so she sighs and explains. “Everybody knew we were going out to dinner for your birthday and that it’d have to be someplace fancy. You do make an ungodly amount of money after all. So I asked Sloan about potential faux pas, because I was raised a heathen, and she said not to worry about it because ‘it’s just Will’ but I said ‘what about later?’ because who wears a dress this expensive only once.”

“My birthday?”

“Nice flowers.” She tips her chin toward the bouquet in the middle of his dining table. “Sloan sent me the same ones for my birthday.”

“Yeah but—”

“You’re in the company directory.”

“You looked up my birthday?”

“You don’t ask the woman you’re fucking out for a fancy dinner; I had a hunch.”

“Mac.” He protests.

She knows why he’s protesting, she isn’t stupid, but she can’t bear the thought of him saying anything, of having to deal with that tonight, not tonight, and so she draws a finger up to his lips and shushes him.

“Tell me what you want to do with me, birthday boy.” She purrs, relieved when he grins, when he reaches for her, draws her closer.

“There’s a million things.” His words tickle as his lips brush her neck. “And after,” he sighs into her shoulder, ”I’d like to make you breakfast. Pancakes like the ones at those twenty four hour places, but served in bed. You don’t have to worry, I’ll have you out of here by dawn, Cinderella.”

*

“You fucked him for his birthday.”

It isn’t a question so she doesn’t bother with an answer.

“Please tell me you didn’t.”

She raises her eyes from her desk to where he’s leaning toward her earnestly.

“Mac.” Her name’s a little too sharp but she ignores that. “Please tell me you didn’t. Tell me it was some sort of pity fuck. Say something.”

“We went to dinner, shared a really nice bottle of wine, then went back to his place.”

“You told me—”

“I told you you didn’t have to worry about your job and you don’t.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“That’s not what you meant.”

“Jim,” she sighs pinching the bridge of her nose. There’s no way she can explain that this isn’t the first time, that they’ve started to make a habit of it: once a month, once every couple of weeks. He has to know she’s been seeing someone in some capacity; she hasn’t been going out, hasn’t been showing up at Hang Chews with the frequency she had been. He has to know but he’s refusing to put two and two together.

“You know he— I know you’re not entirely oblivious to the tabloids.”

“Get out.”

“Mac—”

“Conversation’s over, Jim.”

“Should I come back?” Will’s at her door, turned a bit toward her so Jim can squeeze behind him if he needs to.

“No,” Jim throws her one last plaintive look. “I’m done maligning your good name for the day.”

“Oh?” Will sounds genuinely intrigued as Jim musters a polite smile.

“I may have suggested you have a history of being a bit of a player.”

“That’s a fair assessment. A rather generous one.” Will chuckles as she frowns at him.

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“Will.” She narrows her eyes a bit, but he doesn’t seem interested in reneging. “All right. Fine. Jim, I’m serious about—” 

“I’m leaving.” He withdraws his complaint with a put out sigh. “Just be careful, OK.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I hope you haven’t unpacked.” She sets her glasses back on her desk and frowns at him, at the casual way he’s smirking at her.

“If this is about the panel—”

“What else would this be about?”

“Cyrus West—”

“I called DC last night and let them know to expect you.”

“I need to tell you a story Cyrus West told—”

“You can tell it to your producer in DC.”

“It’s a black op called Genoa.”

“That’s none of my concern.”

“I booked a bad guest.”

“Yeah you did.”

“You can’t fire me for booking a bad guest.”

“I’m not.” She picks up her glasses, sets them back into place on the end of her nose. “I asked you here because I needed a senior producer. I no longer need one. DC’s expecting you this afternoon.”

“You can’t—” he starts again, pausing when Will appears slouching in the doorway. “She’s—”

“Yeah. Can I help you carry anything out?”

She watches Jerry sputter for the first time in the twenty four hours they’ve been acquainted. He’s obviously confused by Will’s refusal to back him up but eventually manages to slink by him out the door. She calls Kendra at the assignment desk, a quick double ring in warning, before setting the phone down and glancing at Will who’s still lounging by the door.

“Does this mean Jim’s coming back?”

“No.” She smiles at how hopeful he sounds. “He should come to his senses in a couple of weeks. This isn’t the first time he’s had his heart broken by the locals.”

“You’re going to need—”

“Maggie offered to step up and Don’s loaning me Brenda. I’ve done far more with much less.”

“All right.”

“Did you need something?”

He shrugs, smiles. “I’m going climbing on Saturday. I thought you might want to come.”

*

The offer hadn’t made much sense to her at the time, but she goes along with it, showing up to the gym in an old t-shirt and a hastily purchased pair of leggings.

“Rock climbing?” She asks and he shrugs.

“Having second thoughts?”

“Seriously?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m surprised you’re not halfway up the wall already.”

She laughs at that, turning serious only when one of the staff members comes over to explain the safety equipment to her. 

It’s clear Will’s been here before, clearer still with the way he scales the wall with no need for the harness that tugs periodically at her waist as she shifts her weight too quickly grasping for the handholds just out of her reach.

*

“Do me a favor.” Will glances at her as she stretches, reaching for another handhold toward the top of the tower.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t look down.”

“OK.” She lets it sit more as a question than agreement and she hears the tiny aggravated noise he makes in the back of his throat as he waits for whatever else she’s going to say. “I have to get down somehow.”

“You can look at the wall without looking down.”

“That sounds complicated.” She’s teasing but he sighs anyway.

“Can you try?”

“Yeah.” She grins at him, not willing to give up on needling him quiet yet. “I could repel down or,” she fakes consideration, “get a nice zippy ride down.”

“Mac.”

“Oh, come on.” She glances at him, bottom lip stuck out in pout. “You’re supposed to be having fun.”

“I am having fun.”

“But?”

“But nothing.” He shifts higher and she follows him up, legs aching a bit with the exertion.

“Just try not to look down, OK?”

“Sure.” She reaches up, letting her fingers brush the ceiling. “So I shouldn’t offer to race you down?”

*

“What was that about?” She asks sprawled out on his bed watching him dig through the closet for something to wear, shoulders flexing as he slides hangers around looking through his options.

“Don’t look down.” She clarifies when he doesn’t respond and he turns to glance at her, considering.

Most people would wait to have this conversation at the table or sitting on the couch, but she’s comfortable where she is, hair still damp from the shower she’d taken at the gym, tired muscles stretching comfortably as she sank into the mattress.

“I wanted it to be about the rock climbing.”

“You wanted the rock climbing to be about rock climbing.”

“I didn’t want it to be,” he pauses to yank a random shirt off a hanger so he can pull it on as he takes a seat next to her. “I knew if you looked down you’d know how far up we were. I didn’t want.” He pauses again before backtracking. “There’s a certain fear that comes from being up that high.”

“You thought I—” She starts to protest.

“Some people chase that feeling, the split second of doubt, overcoming that. It’s a thrill.”

“You—”

“I didn’t want it to be about that.”

“I’m an adrenaline junky?”

“No.” He shakes his head, amused that the thought had crossed her mind. “I don’t think you would’ve been bothered one way or the other. I think you have an odd sense of fear.”

“I,” she doesn’t repeat the rest of what he’d said. She’s too busy trying to parse it to bother.

“Don’s walked Maggie home four times in the last week and a half.”

“I’ve been keeping the staff late.”

“They broke up.”

“Yeah,” she takes it as a question and then reconsiders. “What?”

“A woman was mugged outside the station by Maggie’s apartment last week.”

“I know.” She closes her eyes when he reaches over to run a finger down the bridge of her nose. “What does that have to do with me?”

“You could tell her to head home earlier, make it easier for her to find someone else to walk her home.”

“OK.”

“Mac,” she opens her eyes to find him smiling at her tolerantly; she’s missing the point. “When was the last time you thought about having someone walk you home?”

“Jim sometimes—”

“Because he insists.”

“Yeah.” She sits up so she can watch him properly. “You don’t walk home alone if you’ve been drinking.”

“If you’ve been drinking.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything that scares you?”

“You were expecting me to be afraid of heights?”

“No.” He falls back onto the bed beside her, looking up at her. “I don’t know what I was expecting, just something. Something else.”

***

 

She’s chasing Will, running through the apartment shrieking with laughter, trying occasionally to grab the flash drive he won’t let her have. She follows him from the living room around to the kitchen and through the door back into the hall, skidding a bit in her bare feet when she hears the elevator door open behind her.

“Jim?” She pries a strand of hair off her cheek, running a quick mental check as Jim’s eyebrows rise: she’s thankfully managed to retain most of her own clothes, but she’s lost her sweater and her shoes over the course of the afternoon.

“You forgot.” Jim holds up the bag of food he’s carrying. “You asked me to bring dinner.”

“Right.” She feels her smile slipping farther off her face. “I’ll grab some dishes.”

*

“So how long has this been going on?” Jim folds the end of his pita into his mouth, eyes trained on her.

She raises her eyebrows with deliberate slowness, but he isn’t bothered by the gesture. “I don’t know how that’s any of your business.”

“You’re fucking with my job.”

“Am I?” It’s a casual observation followed by an equally inane question, but there’s a rapidly growing sheet of ice beneath them both.

“I think you know you are.”

“I think dinner’s over.” She scrapes her chair back. “You can see yourself out.”

“Mac.”

“Unless you’re hiding a bottle of forty malt you need to leave. I’m way too fucking sober to deal with your shit.”

“Mac.”

She isn’t budging he knows that, but he keeps trying, throwing a questioning glance in Will’s direction before hastily getting to his feet as she takes a step around the table.

“I’m going.” He holds up a hand trying to placate her. “I’m sor—”

He stops when she glares. She isn’t interested, still isn’t interested when Will broaches the subject later.

“He’s being protective.”

“He’s being an ass. Being protective is reminding me to put my helmet on before we climb in a humvee.”

“Let’s stick with that metaphor.” He suggests as she slots another plate into his dishwasher.

“Or not.” She counters, but he steps closer and leans to hook his chin over her shoulder ignoring her remark.

“He doesn’t want you to get hurt. He’s been AWOL for awhile so maybe he hasn’t realized that you’ve scoped out the situation. You’re not getting in the humvee, you’re getting back in.”

“That’s a fine line.”

“And a shitty metaphor.” He agrees before she hears him smile and feels the corners of her mouth tug up reluctantly.

“He’s trying to be a good friend without having to come out and ask if you’re fucking your boss.”

“Oh he knows. He always knows. He says I’m predictable. He thinks I’m set to self-destruct with a short fuse.”

“I don’t think he thinks that.”

“No?”

“No.” He hums, his arms slipping alongside hers, straightening the dishes as she drops them, less carefully than she should, into place. “You don’t spend five years in a warzone with someone who’s a liability. I think he knows you’re going to do what you want and he’s trying to watch your back.”

“By being a—”

“By not mentioning the possibility that I could rip your heart out and crush it without warning.”

“Nice.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“No.” She slots the last dish in and bumps the rack back into place before nudging the door shut with her foot. “You like being the nice guy. You’d give me forty eight hours notice minimum.”

*

She’s not annoyed enough with him to decline his invitation to Hang Chews, even if she’s spent the last couple of days following her around with put-upon puppy dog eyes. Most of the staff is here, but they’re tucked away in a corner somewhere as she slides onto a stool at the bar and orders a double along with her usual. She’s drinking harder than she normally would when she was here, but she figures that’s partly the point, another jab to add to Jim’s mounting annoyance with her.

“Drinking alone?” Will smiles conspiratorial as he slips into the seat beside her.

“Not technically speaking.” She nods towards where Jim’s standing watching her as she leans across the bar, ordering another.

“That’s enough.” Jim appears at her elbow to whisper in her ear.

“I’m paying for it.” She tips her head back and pours the shot down her throat, deliberately defiant as Jim shifts his weight beside her, settling in. 

“And that’s the last one. We need to go.”

“ _We_ don’t need to—” She knows she isn’t helping, but she’s not about to stop before Will cuts in.

“I can walk her home.”

“That’s all right.” Jim offers easily. “You just got here.”

“That’s the perfect time to leave.” Will’s smile is equally as smooth as he slips back to his feet. “Come on, Mac.”

“Buzzkill.” She frowns but she doesn’t argue when he prods her gently to her feet, doesn’t argue when he sets off in the direction of her apartment instead of hailing the cab she’d been hoping for.

“I don’t think you need to keep—” He starts off gently and she heaves a sigh.

“He knows better.” She pauses at the corner before reluctantly turning up Broadway to cut through the Square toward her place. “Last time he dragged me out of a bar before I was suitably intoxicated I shut the door in his face.”

This particular version of the story leaves out a couple of details but she figures she doesn’t really need to prove her point. The fact that she’d dropped her ACN credentials as she’d fumbled, or so it’d seemed, for her keys, had meant she’d been able to slip inside her building as Jim had bent to retrieve them. The fact that she’d called him the following morning at 6 AM insisting she’d been heading into the office right that moment had left him scrambling to meet her, had left him sitting in the atrium while she’d slowly made her way through two bowls of cereal and an unnecessarily long shower.

“Is that how you keep everyone out of your place?” He’s teasing, she’s not drunk enough not to realize that, but she can’t figure out why, what’s so amusing even as he follows her from the bank of elevators to the door of her apartment.

“It’s a place to sleep.” She picks up the conversation as she fits her key in the lock. “There’s nothing to see but you’re welcome to come in. Unfortunately I only have beer.”

“That’s fine.” Will’s close behind her, hand on her waist as he follows her inside. “I wasn’t expecting a bar. You don’t like to drink alone.”

“You noticed.” She drops her keys onto the table beside the door and moves farther into the apartment to fall onto the couch, unlace her shoes.

“You and Jim have that in common. I don’t mind much one way or the other.”

“So you didn’t walk me home for a drink.”

“I was sitting in a bar.” He reminds her with a grin as she tucks her shoes under the couch with her feet, keeping them out of the way. “I was curious about this place, about your neighbors, about your soundproofing.”

She laughs at that, at how casual he sounds, like he says it all the time. She knows he gets off on getting her off, it hadn’t taken her long to figure that out, hadn’t taken her much longer to figure out that he didn’t mind when she got loud, but she wasn’t particularly interested in that tonight.

“I don’t have a proper bed.” She doesn’t mean it as an apology but she knows it sounds like one. She’d spent the first year sleeping on her pull out sofa bed, not entirely convinced that she wouldn’t be packing everything up again, but she had eventually bought a mattress, tucked it into the corner under the window where a table should’ve sat, but she’d never bought a frame for the bed. She hadn’t seen the point, but now it doesn’t feel right; it feels awkward after all the time she’s spent in his carefully put together apartment.

“Who said we needed a bed?”

“You’re horrible.” She insists even as she stands to step toward him, tug on his arm, shuffling back toward the bed. “Worst date ever. You kick me out of the bar, refuse my refreshments, and now you’re not interested in sleeping with me.”

His eyebrows raise. “I said we didn’t need a proper bed. I didn’t say we couldn’t do it on the kitchen floor.”

“It’s not the kitchen and it’s not the floor.” She stops when her heels hit the edge of the mattress. It wasn’t the kitchen, the floor here was wood not laminate, but she could reach out and touch the kitchen counter, reach the oven mitts Jim had left after one holiday meal or another. It wasn’t the floor either, not strictly speaking, but it was only a matter of inches on either account so she doesn’t really mind, doesn’t argue when a smirk replaces the incredulous look on his face.

“You might want to quit while you’re ahead.”

“Maybe, but maybe you’re going to have to shut me up first.”

“I’m not so good at that.” He waits until she laughs to crack a smile, “but I know that’s why you’re being such a tease.”

***

 

It isn’t the first email she’s gotten but it’s the first one she’s gotten outside of the office and it startles her, sends a dizzying flush of emotion shooting through her.

She’s here because she wants to talk about it in her own way, try and deal with whatever it is she’s been feeling all day, but she hasn’t told Will, hasn’t found the words to raise the spectre and now she finds she can’t. She can’t and she doesn’t want to deal with that which is how her phone ends up smashed, on the floor beside the hearth.

She’s still staring at the carnage, the cracked screen and the bits of plastic when Will wanders out of the bedroom.

“It broke.” She says quietly when he asks her what happened, sagging into him when he slips an arm around her waist.

“We’ll get you another one in the morning.” The promise is soft, breathed into her hair as much as into her ear as she raises and drops her hand back to her side.

“Jim, call Jim.” She requests, straightening slowly, cautiously as he pulls back enough to reach into his pocket for his phone.

She should be the one calling Jim she knows that, not because Jim would care where she was, he’d given up on that, or that Will was calling him, but because she’d been the one to smash her phone into the concrete and Jim should know that. Jim should know that, but she floats away, wandering past the couch to examine the stack of books next to the TV, repossess the blouse she’d lost behind the armchair the week before.

She’s in and out of the kitchen before emerging from the bedroom as Jim sets her new phone on the table, the spare he’d had tucked away in the back of his closet.

“I transferred your contacts and your email’s set up. Neal can take care of anything else on Monday.”

*

Will normally left her to herself while she slept, but tonight he has an arm thrown over her hip. Almost weightless in its placement it doesn’t register until she shifts. Feeling his arm slip, she curses to herself knowing she could be waking him as she freezes, waits, but he doesn’t stir and she slides from the bed cautiously, padding out to the living room to stare at the mantle.

There’s only one bottle of whiskey there, only one bottle of alcohol and she knows it’s an expensive one, knows it’s something special because they’d used it to toast the new year. She knows where he keeps the rest, the bottles lined up on a shelf in the kitchen, but she doesn’t know which ones are the expensive ones, doesn’t want to be down several hundred dollars of booze in a couple of swigs.

She knows Will won’t mind, the money or her drinking, but she can’t stand the thought of being that stupidly irreverent.

“Hey.” She can hear his feet now, whispering against the wood floor as he slips through the space between them and she turns still unused to the way he feels so familiar, to the way she notices his absence rather than his presence. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t.”

He’s close enough now that she can see that he’s skeptical, see that he’s worried because she’s crying she realizes.

“I don’t want to drink the expensive stuff.”

“All right.” He holds out a hand and she shuffles over expecting him to lead her to the kitchen but he wraps her in his arms instead, soft and warm, firm, but careful enough that she can pull away if she wants to. “Trying to get drunk or get back to sleep?”

She wants to get out of the box, the box that feels too real, too concrete to exist only in her head but she doesn’t know how to explain that, not now. 

“Out of my head.” She says it softly, against his shoulder and hears his murmured, hummed agreement, the quiet coaxing noises she’s grown accustomed to.

She doesn’t want to go back to bed, not when she isn’t sure she’ll be able to get back to sleep, not when she isn’t sure he won’t nod off again the second he lays down but she lets him guide her back toward the bedroom anyway, sitting beside him when he pats the bed.

“Lay down.” He coaxes and she does, awkwardly, uncomfortably shifting to settle her head in his lap when he insists, stiffening slightly when he combs his fingers through her hair.

She prefers to lay with her head on his chest, ear pressed over his heart when she’s in the mood for something like this, when she feels like indulging him. She likes the feeling of his hands in her hair, the brush of his thumb against her cheek, but she’s never considered this, the vulnerability of it as he tucks the blankets back around her.

She curls toward him, arm wrapped around his knee as he hand slides up and down her back. He murmurs something she isn’t listening to and she reaches forward, her arm across his lap, grasping for the far side of his thigh until he reaches down to curl his fingers around hers.

She doesn’t feel enveloped by him in the way she wants to, but she knows she wouldn’t be able to stand that either. If he’d held her, if he tried to hold her she knew she’d start crying, would probably start crying anyway so she talks instead, delaying the inevitable. She doesn’t say much in the beginning, it’s the usual BS, the same stories she’s told everyone else, but then Will makes her laugh telling her about the time he’d gotten chased by the neighbor’s dog and the time he fell out of a tree and had his ass saved by a snowbank. He tells her about the time he’d made fun of a kid at school and his mom had found out and started crying.

After that she tells him about the time she’d found her mom sitting in the half bath downstairs crying one day after school. She doesn’t say why. His stories keep coming and she relaxes a little, lets the words slip out the same way she could after she’d been drinking for awhile.

“People loved him.” She says waiting for him to ask who, but he only runs his hand down her back again. “They fucking loved him. They never—”

She stops and breathes, considers quietly asking for follow up to one of his stories, but it’s too tempting, like the light seeping in from the crack under the door she can’t help but reach for it. 

“You know,” she shifts, turning a bit to press the side of her nose into his thigh. “It was always the same thing. All the girls, they wanted to know what would happen if no one believed them and I’d always say I would, I’d believe them, and I did. I always did, but there was this one girl. She’d talked her family into letting her talk to me. She wanted to talk to me, but she stopped me when I started asking questions; she had a question.”

He’s patient, waiting a moment to see if she’ll continue before asking, “what was it?”

“What if they didn’t listen? I told her that I’d keep trying, that I’d keep telling her story until someone listened.”

“And what’d she say?”

“She told me everything. She let me use her voice, use her face even though it was dangerous. The episode won a couple of awards. I sent her the prize money. It didn’t feel right...” she trails off unable to explain how disquieting it had been to accept the money when she hadn’t expected it, when she hadn’t needed it.

“Did you send her the Peabody too?”

She smiles at that for a moment, wondering when he’d noticed that she only had the one Peabody in her office, wondering why he hadn’t said something earlier. “What would she do with a Peabody?”

“Use it to brain the guy who tried to kill her.”

“She’d already left Afghanistan by the time I met her. Her family was in a camp outside Peshawar for awhile but they have an apartment in Islamabad now. She’s in school. She’s safe. As safe as,” she stops unwilling to fill in that particular blank. “It wouldn’t have occurred to her to kill him. She never was afraid of him.”

“Brave girl.”

“Stupid you mean.” She says it because she knows what he wants to ask, what he wants to say: but shouldn’t she have, because she should have.

“No. Not stupid.” She can feel that he wants to press the issue, his disagreement stiff in his muscles, but he’s quiet, silently tugging against her scalp as his fingers snag in her hair.

“You don’t believe that.” She knows that, she’s so sure of it, as sure of it as she is of the fact that he wasn’t like that, that he didn’t.

“I do. She survived, kept surviving and maybe saved another girl’s life, maybe more than one. She didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to talk to you. She told you her story so people would know, so people would feel accountable, think twice. She took a risk. She asked you to stand beside her and yell into the void and you did. You yelled until someone listened.”

“I’m still doing that.” She says because it seems relevant now to remind him of that, of the show they still had to fight for even after two years.

“Not tonight.” He says it like a promise and for a moment she wonders what he means by that. She knows it’s unlikely he means at the office, that’s an irrelevant distinction, one day out of so many, but then he clarifies. “I'm listening. I believe you.”

It's too much. The words she’d been doling out slip out of her grasp. Jim had occasionally joked about ‘drunk therapy’, but she's said more tonight about herself than she ever had to anyone. There are pieces he can pick up and turn over, but she can't give him anymore, not tonight.

“I know. I—” she lingers, trying to string the words together, trying, but she can't. “Fuck.” 

“It’s all right.” One of his fingers brushes her cheek. “You don’t normally talk this much. I'll still be here tomorrow, and Sunday, and Monday.” He continues his litany teasingly, easing the ache in her lungs. “Take your time. There’s no rush.”

***

 

She’d accepted Don’s offer for drinks knowing it was only an excuse to pour a couple of drinks down her throat sitting someplace familiar, someplace that wouldn’t raise eyebrows, but she ends up having a good time, ends up matching him drink for drink even though she knows he sometimes drinks harder than he should, drinks harder than she should when she's somewhere she can make a fool of herself, when Jim's not there to stop her. 

She knows but still she matches him drink for drink, so she's a little drunk when they leave just before closing, laughing as she hails a cab not to her place, but to Will's. She's a little drunk when she curses quietly giving Manny a forlorn look as she lies, “I lost my key.” She's a little drunk stumbling into his kitchen with her shoes still on, forgetting she shouldn't be turning the lights on.

“Mac?” He sounds sleepy, confused, but not alarmed as he steps out from the bedroom with a hand held up to shield his eyes.

“I'm a little drunk.” She smiles at him, grins a little and he chuckles.

“I'm can see that. Come on let's get you in the shower.”

“That won't make me less drunk.” It's a warning not a protest but he doesn't seem to mind either way, walking over to wrap his arm around her shoulder

“No but it’ll quiet you down a little.” He shakes his head at the way she pouts. “It’s two a.m. and you’re clearly happy to be here.”

“I’m being loud.” She infers and then slaps a hand over her mouth abashedly.

“It’s all right. Come on.”

*

She hadn’t intended to wash her hair, but she’d been on autopilot, arguing with him, trying to get him to join her because somehow they’ve managed to avoid any sort of joint showers for, what she’s decided tonight is, way too long. Standing on the other side of the open bathroom door, then flopping onto the bed, he isn’t having any of it.

She doesn’t mind though, not when he’s still awake and waiting for her when she gets out of the shower. Not when he offers to comb her hair for her, towel dry it while she presses both hands over her mouth to stifle her giggles.

“You had vodka.” He infers when she’s calmed down enough that she’s laying on the bed watching his silhouette shift against the window as he climbs back between the sheets.

“I had a couple of martinis.” She confesses. “I don’t normally drink vodka or anything with rum. Rum is good. Rum is like— You should buy me champagne.” She knows there’s a leap there, words that hadn’t made it out of her mouth, but she doesn’t mind that he doesn’t know that champagne drunk is the most depressing sort of drunk.

“Are we celebrating?”

“Do people celebrate things to get drunk?”

“Yeah, and sometimes it’s the other way around too.” He’s still amused, teasing her a little because he can.

“Well then,” she considers, “my dad died on Friday.”

“I know.”

“Jim told you.”

“Yeah. He saw the emails when he was setting up your phone.”

“You didn’t say anything.” She’s suddenly feeling less drunk. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shifts closer and she feels the pressure of his arm against the top of her pillow. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to talk about it.”

“I came here to talk to you.”

“I thought that was a possibility. I wasn’t expecting to see you sitting in the lobby when I got home.”

“I didn’t call. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You don’t bother me.”

“I didn’t want to interrupt.” She cuts him off, impatient with the way he’s insisting on being nice.

“Even if you had I wouldn’t have minded. I like having you around.”

“Even in the middle of the night, when I’m drunk?” She lets another giggle rise up, but this one’s a little fake, a little forced.

“Even then.”

“Will.”

“I’m serious.” She feels him move closer, feels the heat coming off his body, the warmth of him so close she can’t help but reach forward and wrap her fingers in his t-shirt. “I like having you here and I like that you let me be here for you.”

“I don’t do greeting card platitudes.”

“I know.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” He shifts closer, presses his lips against the top of her head as she lets herself lean into him. “So am I.”

***

 

Three steps and then a jump. One, two, three, and then up the wall. She pauses for a second and then takes a step back. One. Two. Three. She feels her foot miss the foothold she needs and she pulls her hands away, lets herself fall before she ends up gouged with splinters.

It had taken her a couple of weeks, a couple of tries to realize she couldn’t haul herself up the wall the same way Will could. She’d learned pretty quickly she didn’t have the same reach he had, had known she didn’t have the same upper body strength, but it had taken her awhile to adjust, to learn to compensate, to use her legs, take half a step back and push harder.

She lands on her feet and uses the momentum to step back again and again and then she stops, pauses, tries again. She feels her foot connect with the wall, feels it hold fast. She doesn’t stop to celebrate, she pushes, scrambles, grabs the top of the wall and vaults over, clearing the far side in one clean motion.

She knows he hates that she wasn’t more careful, that she didn’t pause to check her footing before she slipped over the side, but she’s familiar with this, with the feeling of the ground coming up too quickly underfoot, too familiar to worry about it. She knows she needs to clear the wall the same way she’d cleared the side of the house, the edge of the porch roof, the basement wall below the window to the root cellar. She had to clear the wall and she’d be fine. She had to clear the wall and she would, every single time.

She hears him land on the hard packed dirt beside her as she straightens.

“You didn’t help me over.” She hadn’t felt his hand hovering at her elbow or at her waist as she’d shoved herself up over the top of the wall.

“You seemed to be doing all right.” He shrugs a lazy shrug.

“Yeah.” She copies the move liking the way it settles her shoulders. “You say that now.”

“You don’t like the culvert.”

“Have you crawled through a sewer?” She throws a look over her shoulder as she settles into a jog. “Try that first and then tell me how much you enjoy scrambling through a metal tube.”

*

They’re both panting by the time they finish the course, although he has enough breath left to call out and stop her from flopping onto the strip of grass at the edge of the parking lot as she passes.

“Wait.” He says and she groans, slowing until she feels like her feet are sticking to the pavement as she pushes open the car door and flops onto the backseat.

“That was shit.”

Will ignores the comment and tosses her a bottle of gatorade from the cooler he’d left stashed near where her feet are resting. “It’s cold.”

She ignores that, knowing he’s going to insist she drink the entire thing regardless of its temperature. “I’d get my ass kicked in basic.”

“Good thing you’re a journalist then.”

She cracks an eye open to frown at the way he’s turned to grin at her from the passenger seat.

“Jack used to say that.” Jack used to say a lot of things. Jack used to talk a lot of shit. “Until he found out I was a better shot than he is.”

That had happened after they’d all come home, after Jim had insisted she spend an afternoon having drinks with the guys. Even after two beers she’d managed to put five holes in the bullseye to Jack’s three. Her dad would’ve been proud if he’d been proud of all the afternoons she’d spent out back practicing after he’d bought her the bb gun she’d never asked for, after she’d learned to hit any target he picked out, but he hadn’t been proud, although that had never mattered any more than Jack’s defeat had. She’d done what she needed to do and moved on. “You said it’d get easier.”

“It would if it wasn’t hotter than hell out there.” Will’s grin doesn’t budge.

“It’s not— It’s 86 degrees.”

“With a heat index of ten thousand.”

“Will.”

“The only time I want to sweat this much—”

“No.” She insists before he can finish that thought, knowing what he’s thinking, what he’s always prone to thinking when she started to take things too seriously. “Don’t you dare drag me into—”

“Is in a sauna.” He finishes, triumphant when she laughs, leaning past the center console to tweak the end of her nose. “What did you think I was going to say?”

***

 

“You,” he stops, considering her as she leans back against the bathroom door waiting for him to finish the question he’d intended to ask her. “I’ve been looking for that.”

She frowns a bit of a ‘huh’. She knows it’s his favorite, he wasn’t picky, anything blue and white striped was his favorite, but this one was a particular favorite of his, and although she hadn’t known it that first night when she’d slipped it on, she’s worn it quite a bit since then, worn it more than he has, but she’d always left it hanging in his closet, always made sure it’d never left his apartment until she’d sauntered out last week with the it tucked into her jeans and his baseball cap on her head.

“It’s my favorite.”

“It’s my favorite.” He adds a bit of emphasis that only deepens her frown.

“You said I could have it.”

“I know.”

“It looks better on me.” She reminds him.

“I know.” He’s smiling a little now, amused she assumes by whatever he’s not saying.

“It makes your legs go on forever.”

“All your shirts do that.” She shifts her weight, leaning back a bit more, knowing it wasn’t his shirts but the accompanying lack of pants that made her legs look longer.

“Especially that one.”

“It’s the angle. You’re practically on the floor.”

“I like the view.”

“Shut up.” She laughs although she knows he can’t see much from where he’s laying, knows she wouldn’t care if he could. “I need to get a frame for that.”

“You do?”

“Oh,” she scoffs at him as she takes a couple of steps to fall gracelessly onto the mattress beside him. “You know.”

“What’s the hold up?”

“Do you know how much it costs to move a bed, store it?”

“I think.” She watches him stretch, watches him wiggle a bit across the bed until he can reach his pants, pull out his wallet. “About this much.” He drops a wad of bills onto the sheets. “That should cover it, or the moving it, or whatever the problem is.”

“You can be strange sometimes.” She says in lieu of thank you or whatever else she’s supposed to say, because the cash isn’t the hang up and she knows he knows that. “What if I decide I like sleeping on the floor?”

“Buy the staff a couple of rounds. A few times.” He tacks on when she doesn’t look convinced. “Buy season tickets to whatever it is the kids are watching these days.”

*

She buys the staff a couple of rounds on a night she knows he’ll stick around, taking a couple of shots at Jim’s insistence but otherwise sticking to the drink she’s carefully watering down until she’s convinced Will will buy her slightly tipsy act as she heads for the door.

“No, no,” she’s insisting as he finally manages to reach around her and unlock her door. “That’s not what he said. He said—”

She stops to grunt as she backs up, hard, against the wall. “I thought I was the one drinking tonight.”

“Early birthday present.” He announces, hands already prying at the sides of her shirt.

“I already got you one.” She lays her hand on his arm for a second, then tugs, turning away from the wall, carefully counting her steps so she doesn’t trip when she bumps into the newly relocated couch, when she steps around it and backs up farther, away from the kitchen, until the back of her knees hit the bed.

“I thought we could christen it.” She’s trying not to smile too much. “I haven’t slept in it yet.”

It’s dark without the lights on, odd shadows thrown over everything by the light from the window but she knows he knows what he’s looking at.

“That doesn’t go here.” He says after a moment and she grins.

“The view’s better over here.”

“You think I care about the view out the window when you’re—”

“You can see us both.” She cuts him off to laugh delighted by how surprised he sounds. “You’re always saying you wish I had tinted—”

“Because you— nevermind. When did you? You,” he stops to sigh. “You bought the staff drinks. You— Whatever the hell you were drinking it wasn’t bourbon.”

“Mostly watered down flat soda.” She sits, tugging at his shirt until he shifts closer.

“You could have asked me up.”

“That would’ve been suspicious.”

“So you went for a charade?”

She pouts a little then grins again, not at all put off by his minor exasperation. “The guy at the store said it’s almost as quiet as a mattress on the floor. The frame and the wooden slat are both one piece. I could’ve mounted a headboard on the wall, but the window has a better view.”

“You keep saying that.” Will seems to have recovered from his surprise. “It’s not even a contest. I always have the best view.”

“Flirt.” She shakes her head at him and then bounces a bit on the bed, experimenting. “Can we try it out now?”

“Is that my birthday present?”

“Yes old man, it’s part of it.”

“I’m not cranky.” He’s laughing a little, she can hear it in his voice, but she can also hear his disappointment. “I’m a little bummed I can’t spoil you too.”

“You can’t?”

“Not for your birthday. I already missed 35 and 40’s not for another few years.”

“Yeah.” For a minute she’s openly confused, trying to follow his logic until she realizes he’s miscalculated. “I finished high school in ‘93.”

“That came up.” He agrees and she sighs.

“I was sixteen.”

“In 1993?”

“Yeah.”

“Mac?”

She knows what he’s thinking, what he’s trying to figure out so she reaches for him, snagging his belt this time so she can slip her fingers under the leather, distract him.

“Hang on.” He stills her hands with one of hers. “How has that not come up?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs knowing that she does; she doesn’t like to bring it up, there’s too much of a story there, too much she might say.

“You don’t have kid genius listed on your resume.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You can’t just get bored and do a bunch of extra homework, graduate early.”

“You can.” She had, although it hadn’t been boredom as much as a need for distraction, a desperate push to keep herself grounded.

“You don’t want to talk about it.” He slides his hand from hers, the bed dipping as he takes a seat beside her.

“It’s fine.” She sifts, settling in beside him, and tucks her fingers into the comforter, resisting the urge to run a hand across her face.

“No,” he disagrees softly. “We don’t have to talk about it, but I would like to know if it’d be all right if I bought you something in June.”

She starts, surprised, before she has time to wonder if it’s another lucky guess on his part. He’s been surprising her more often lately, doling out the tidbits of information he’s managed to collect.

“Jim insists on buying you something: a mug, a blouse, that t-shirt.” He’s explaining before she can ask.

“Journalist because superwoman isn’t an official job title. You noticed.”

“He doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to special occasions. It’s hard not to notice when he’s that pleased with himself.”

“He saw my passport a couple of times.”

“June 1977. Spain holds free elections. Elvis gives his last performance. Kanye’s born. I’ll buy you some coral lipstick and—”

“That’s for wedding anniversaries.” She cuts in.

“That’s not something I expected you to—”

“I helped a guy pick out something for his wife once.” She doesn’t elaborate, the possibility of what he might say enough to dissuade her from continuing. It wouldn’t matter that the acquaintance she’d been helping had been overseas, in the States, most of that time she’d known him, she didn’t want Will wondering when she’d managed to have a sorted affair with a man twice her age, even if she hadn’t, even if he wouldn’t mind if she had.

“So you memorized the entire list?”

“Just part of it.” Part of it was an exaggeration, coral had stuck in her head, but beyond that she wasn’t sure if silver was meant for a twenty fifth or a seventy fifth anniversary.

“When—”

“You could buy me lingerie.” She suggests trying to get things back on track, turn things back away from her, from the thought of what he might unintentionally ask her to say.

“That’d be a little selfish.” Will offers her a smile, not at all displeased by the idea. “I’ll have to leave the easy stuff for Jim: books, balloons, cliched greeting cards.”

“I’d still get to wear it.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs unconvinced, and she searches for a compromise.

“Climbing then lunch.”

“Something new.” He insists. “Cake.”

“Off your abs?” She grins at him cheekily as he shakes his head.

“I’ll have to think about that.”

“But not right now,” she suggests hopefully.

“Why what’s happening now?”

She knows he’s joking, goading her, but she gets to her feet anyway, groaning, “god, guess I’m gonna have to get naked and keep myself company then.”

“Hey,” he reaches for her, wrapping his arm around her waist to send her tumbling back into his lap. “Forget your birthday, what about the rest of mine?”


	3. Chapter 3

She knows no one’s staying after they wrap things up. They’ve had later nights and still gone for drinks after, but there’s a sourness to the mood tonight despite the excitement of the election. It’s bitter and more than a little frustrated so she’s packed up and halfway out the door before Will stops her.

“Hot date?”

She digs her heels into the floor, stopping short, before turning toward where he’s leaning against his office door.

“Bed.”

“That urgently?”

She shrugs, taking a couple of steps toward him. She wants to be headed in the opposite direction but she hates to brush him off.

“I figured I should go to bed before I do something stupid like call Dantana and tell him what I think of him.”

“That would not be the best idea.” Will agrees, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Let me grab a couple of things and I’ll walk with you.”

She wants to tell him not to bother, she really is headed home to bed, but she lets him follow her down to the street and, when he gestures for her to move over, into the cab, so that they’re both standing in her living room before she has the heart to tell him to go home.

“But I just got here.” The pout is put on, she knows that, but she still doesn’t like that she put it there.

“I’m not good company. I’m cranky.” She tries to explain. “He’s screwing over my colleagues and—”

“Your friends.” Will cuts in with a smirk she knows means he’s being semantic.

“Coop never worked with—”

“You have other friends.”

“Jim, Sloan, Charlie,” she pauses to consider who else he might think fits the bill and throws in a couple of the guys she’d been embedded with. She still sees them a couple of times of years although it’s Jim that keeps in touch, Jim that invites her along.

“At CNN.”

“Maggie,” she considers, ignoring the way his eyebrows rise as she refuses to cede his point.

“You worked with other people at CNN.”

“Yeah,” she throws him a bone before going back to her list. “Don and—”

“Mac.” He chuckles but he looks a little disappointed, a little sad as he steps forward to slide his hands around her waist.

“Joanne,” she tacks on not wanting to remind him that most of the people she’d worked with directly at CNN were overseas, fewer, but still too many, were dead, and the rest, the rest were getting screwed by Jerry and she hated that.

“And every single person being named in the suit being filed tomorrow morning.”

“Not every one.”

“Most of them.”

She nods and leans to rest her forehead on his shoulder, lets him pull her a little closer as she sighs.

“I want,” to fix it she wants to say, but she knows she can’t, knows there’s nothing she or anyone else can do.

“If it’s any consolation, your friends are planning on kicking his ass.”

“Yeah.”

“And so is your boyfriend.” He tacks on thoughtfully and she almost laughs, at the way he says it, at the way she knows he knows how absurd it sounds.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a proper man by now.”

“Manfriend.” Will tries the word out and she snorts.

“What is that, the hipster version of douchebag?”

“I hope not.” He chuckles, his laugh helping ease the ache in her chest. “Have you talked to Coop?”

“He’s pissed.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She nods, smiling as she remembers how irritated he had sounded, how familiar that particular tone of voice was. He’d never gotten particularly mad at her, although they all knew he should have, but he had gotten mad about other things, although not like this, never like this. “Do you really want to hit him?”

“Mmmm.” Will’s still chuckling. “I always thought he was too smug for his own good.”

“That could’ve been us.”

“It wasn’t.”

“But—” she’s trying to protest but Will’s already shaking his head, gently dissuading her.

“You can’t play that game, Mac”

“What if I want to.”

“That’s not like you.”

It isn’t. She knows it isn’t. She’d made a point of making sure it wasn’t. She wouldn’t have made it two weeks overseas if she’d spent more than thirty seconds thinking ‘that could have been me’. She wasn’t that person, except maybe she was.

“What if…”

“What?”

“What if,” but there isn’t anything to fill in the blank, nothing she can say, because it wasn’t them, it never could have been her, not with the way she’d distrusted Jerry from the moment he’d walked into the newsroom, but there’s still a part of her that’s afraid of what’s going to happen in the morning, a part of her she can’t explain away.

“Something bad happens to people you like?”

“Yeah.”

She’s expecting ‘that’s the price you pay’ or ‘it’ll work out’, but instead he sighs and pulls her close, holds her tight. “You keep telling me how pissed off it makes you and I’ll tell you the same stupid story about the time I got gum in my hair.”

“Will.” It’s a ridiculous story and she knows he knows that, but he’d already told it to her twice, because it had made her laugh he’d said and she can’t deny that, she had laughed, she’d laughed so hard the first time she’d been breathless by the time he’d finished.

“Caring about people is like taking a stroll around the Green Zone: dangerous, possibly ill-advised, but beautiful.”

She scrunches her face up at the metaphor but lets him finish before cutting in. “I can’t fight their battle for them.”

She knows that’s not what he means, that he’s trying to tell her it’s okay to be scared without actually saying what he’s been trying to tell her for months: that he knew and he was here, even though she might not be.

“I’m not worried” she starts then doesn’t finish because there’s no point in denying it. She can play semantics, they both can, but that wouldn’t change the fact that she was worried.

“I don’t want to be stuck in a box. Not forever. Not now.” She knows she’s not making sense, knows she’s not sounding logical, but she’s too close to crying to care.

“It has a nice view.” He murmurs and she can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a quip about her apartment or if he’s serious, if he’s misread her intent even though she knows she has her fingers kinked in his shirt, trying not to cling to him.

“Not funny.” He fills in for her, before he tightens his hold on her, cradles the back of her head in his hand. “Right now everything’s all right.”

She knows he’s trying to make her feel better, but she doesn’t care about right now, doesn’t care about yesterday. Yesterday wasn’t going to save her. Right now wasn’t going to stop everything from getting fucked up.

“I don’t want to.”

There’s a desperation in her stubbornness she knows he hasn’t missed, but his demeanor doesn’t change. “What can I do?”

She hates the way he asks, how easy it sounds, but she can’t fault him for being direct, not when she’s as blunt as she is in her own way. “What do you need me to do right now?”

“Stay here.”

“And shut up?” He tries for levity but she only shakes her head as he squeezes her shoulders gently. “For how long?”

“Forever.” She offers because there doesn’t seem to be another span of time that fits.

“OK. Does here include sitting, because forever is about a thousand years too long to be standing the whole time.”

She laughs a little, choking on the sound and she knows he smiles, relaxes a little when she loosens her grip, trusting him to stay.

“Jim said it would be ugly.”

“What would?”

“Crying.” She says although that’s not at all what she meant, not at all what she’s worried about, because Jim had been right, it wasn’t Will she was worried about but her job and by extension Jim’s, her impulse to run. She’d been running for so long she wasn’t sure she knew how to stop, still doubted that she could.

“This really caught you off guard, didn’t it? I knew Jerry was an ass, but I wasn’t expecting it either.” He says it like it happens all the time, like the lawsuit was the mistake, like the mistake wasn’t a random act of serendipity, of instinct.

“I wasn’t— Jerry’s not— I—” She stops to swallow a hiccup and feels Will sigh.

“Tell me about the box. If it’s anything like the damn culverts we’re in trouble but I think we can figure it out.”

“What?”

It wasn’t like him to circle back around, to pick over the references and the inane gestures, but something about the way she’d said it, the way she couldn’t help but bring it up from time to time meant he was curious. He was curious but she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about Fran either, but at least that would be a shorter conversation.

“It’s something Fran used to say.”

“Fran?”

“Mmm.” She hums waiting for the inevitable torrent of questions, but there’s only one.

“Which continent—”

“Nebraska.” She cuts in to save him some time and feels him shake his head.

“Nebraska’s its own continent? Where’s Fran now?” He tacks on when she doesn’t reply.

“Dead.”

“That was a long time ago.” He wagers sounding less like he’s guessing and more like he knows although she doesn’t know how he could. “I’m sorry.”

“She— it doesn’t matter.”

“She’d be proud of you.”

“You can’t know that.” The thought that he thought he might think he does makes her angry, makes her pull away to drop onto the couch.

“She was important to you. She loved you. She’d be proud.”

It’s the usual string of logic, she knows that, knows he’s guessing based on her reaction, on the way she isn’t brushing the whole thing off like she normally would, like she always had. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“You’re wondering if you could have fucked this up.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Feelings don’t have to be logical.”

“You might want to shut up before you start sounding any more like Jim.”

“OK.” He sits beside her, leaning to bump her shoulder. “Since I’m staying, would it be all right if I took a shower? You’re welcome to join me.”

*

She missed Fran on nights like this, when the sky was white with snow and she can’t sleep with the way she ached, wished. She hadn’t known, hadn’t been expecting the call that night, someone she hadn’t known calling to break the news, calling to send her skidding back into herself.

It hadn’t been worth it then and she isn’t sure it’s worth it now, gaze fixed on everything she can’t see out the window, Will asleep beside her, sprawled out into the space she’d vacated when she’d sat up, drawn her knees to her chest to watch the snow swirling, the wind whipping the curtain of white against her window.

She wasn’t sure but she wanted to try, keep trying because he was still here and she knew he didn’t have to be.

“Mac.” She can hear his hand brushing the sheet beside her, looking for her, before she hears him shifting and feels his hand on her arm heavy with sleep. “Did the wind wake you up?”

She shakes her head, gaze still fixed out the window and feels the bed shiver. The mattress dips and she’s half expecting him to go back to sleep but she should know him better by now, know herself better. Even half asleep Will wouldn’t miss the way she was curled against herself.

“Change your mind about the cheesecake?” He leans toward her to murmur, arms wrapping around her shins as he settles in behind her.

“No.” There’s none of her usual laughter in word; they’d joked about stopping for dessert as they’d trudged here through the snow after the show. “It wasn’t supposed to mean anything, the sex. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything.”

“But it did.”

“It wasn’t supposed to. It never,” she pauses to draw in a breath, “I just wanted to feel something, feel like something, like I belonged to myself. It’s,” she sighs in frustration. “We should have stopped for whiskey.”

He considers this, brushing her hair off her shoulder so he can lean his head against the side of hers. “Yeah?”

“It makes the words come out.”

“Sometimes.” He agrees. “Sometimes you do that yourself.”

She’s not entirely sure that’s true, but she has no way of shaking her head with him nestled this close. “I think you have a—”

“Pretty good idea.”

“Will.”

“I’ll let you talk if that’s what you want.”

“You should go back to sleep.”

“Maybe I should, but do you think I will?”

“If I ask you to.”

“Are you asking?”

“No,” she sighs. “Fran hit a patch of ice driving home. She couldn’t see it because the weather was bad.”

“You feel responsible?”

“No, there’s no way I could have been there and nothing I could’ve done to stop it if I had.”

“You miss her.”

“She—” she considers echoing his sentiment from the night before. “Yes.”

“So you can’t sleep.”

It wasn’t that simple. She knew it wasn’t that simple but she wanted it to be. She wanted a one for one trade, Fran for Will, another shot, another chance to try and feel something, to scare herself into living.

“For a long time I thought it was my fault. She’d wanted me to stay, try again with my family, not with my dad, but with the rest of them but I couldn’t and I lost that chance, lost— I stayed in New York for a couple of years but the snow.”

“So you moved to Atlanta.”

“Eventually.”

“Did it help?”

“I ended up in Baghdad.”

“So indirectly.” His exhale tickles her ear. “Jim said it calmed you down a bit.”

“A bit?” She smiles faintly at the thought.

“Apparently I’ve done a much better job. Not to brag but the area around me is always devoid of high explosives.”

“Was that what my problem was?” She knows she sounds more thoughtful than she feels, but she is wondering, “what else did he say?”

“Just that he didn’t need a shotgun. He said you’re a hell of a shot and perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.”

“When was that?” Her smile’s no warmer than it had been, but it feels less transitory, more like it might stick around.

“After we tried out your kitchen floor for comparison’s sake and before—”

He stops when she snorts. “When was that?”

“This time last year give or take.”

“Jim never, he never said.”

“I think he’d prefer to pretend that conversation never happened. Giving your boss unsolicited advice doesn’t always end well.”

“You wouldn’t...”

“No.” He agrees, “but I could have given him a lot of shit about it.”

***

 

He’d asked her to come with him, but she wasn’t about to crash his family reunion, especially not over Christmas. Even in if it meant passing up four days of tropical weather, even if she’s a little disappointed Jim’s taking off the better part of a week to visit his family, she’s not desperate enough to consider four and a half days with the McAvoys.

He’d asked her to come with him, offered to buy her a ticket spur the moment so he’s the last person she’s expecting to see sitting on her couch Friday night when she gets home after the show.

“I missed my flight.” He smiles at her as she stands staring.

“It’s not for another half hour.”

“Oops?” He shrugs.

“There’s another—”

“It’s booked.”

“Tomorrow—”

“Nope.”

“Sunday?”

“It’s not happening.” He says definitively.” I cancelled.”

“You can’t cancel Christmas.”

“Not Christmas just the flight.”

“What? Why?” She knows she looks worried, wondering what had happened, what sort of fight he must’ve had to think about cancelling, for calling the whole thing off.

“They’re getting together again in a couple of months for my mom’s birthday.”

“That’s not relevant.” She takes a couple of steps toward him and lowers her purse to the floor away from where her shoes had been pooling water. It’d been unseasonably warm, raining on and off for most of the day although it’d stopped just before she’d left the office. “You’ve been sitting here all afternoon. You left and you came here. Will.” She pauses, exasperated, and he smiles softly, fondly.

“I couldn’t leave and miss that face. I did go to my place for awhile. I found your hair dryer.” He reaches up to run a hand through his hair. “It was raining pretty hard around quarter to seven.”

“You need to go. Your family’s important.”

“There are other things that are important to me, other people.” He tacks on pointedly. “Airports are hell over the holidays anyway and I really don’t need to spend any more time in St. Lucia.”

“You weren’t saying that a couple of weeks ago. You said it’d be fun and tropical.”

“Because you’d be there.”

“I’m tropical?” She isn’t surprised when he laughs but she is surprised by how serious he still looks.

“Metaphorically.”

“Will.”

“I’m staying, Mac.” He presses gently. “The only question is whether I’m staying here with you.”

*

She’d been reticent at first, more worried than upset, more concerned than scared. The holidays weren’t the be all end all for him, but Christmas was more important to him than it was to her and she didn’t want to mess that up.

She’d stopped asking him if he was sure because she hadn’t wanted him to go, hadn’t wanted him to think she didn’t want him around but she’s still frustrated, still struggling to see past the rocky start to their weekend as she combs through another rack in yet another store, looking for something to give him.

They’d already exchanged gifts, a mini secret santa with Jim, but he’d told her then that he had something else to give her, and she knew, even despite that, she couldn’t bare the thought of an empty tree on Christmas, even if their tree was a fern she’d been given months ago and managed not to kill. She wanted something to give him, something that meant something, but she wasn’t sure what that was.

“That’s a nice sweater.”

He reaches past her toward the sleeve she’d been fingering and she shrugs noncommittally. It’s a color she knows he likes, and it’s soft, some sort of cashmere blend, pricey enough to look like she’d put effort, if not a lot of thought, into the gift.

“It’s a little short though.”

He holds it up in front of her and grins even as she frowns at him confused until he touches a spot at the top of his thigh in illustration.

“I’m not stealing your Christmas sweater.” She sounds exasperated even to her own ears, but it isn’t because of the sweater she knows that.

“I think we should get it anyway.”

She sighs, a little frustrated that this isn’t the first option he’s presented her with, that this isn’t the first time she’s heard him say that.

“I want something—” she turns away from the rack of sweaters. “That isn’t it.”

*

“I know.” They’re out on the sidewalk again, trudging farther down town when he stops to take her arm. “I know you’re not looking for another sweater.”

“Yeah.”

“Photos.”

“After Sloan—”

“Not those kinds of photos. Regular photos, grumpy kids in stuffy suits, dolled up girls with quirky smiles.”

“That’s a genre?” She crinkles her face up and he smiles.

“A portrait, in a nice frame.”

“OK,” she hesitates. She should have something by now, stupid, grinning half drunk photos at the very least, but she’d never seen the point and Jim had always managed a decent collection, something she’d never asked him about but she figures she could. “I’ll have to ask Jim if he has—”

“There’s a studio across the street.”

“What?” She looks up, peering at the row of shops, and has to stop herself from swearing. “I’m not any good at that sort of thing. You’ve seen my ID.”

“Is your passport photo any better?” He’s teasing because she still hasn’t showed him; she’s still holding out, worried about the fuss he’s going to make over her birthday.

“God, no. I can’t. Will—” She protests as he tugs on her arm encouragingly. “I’m not dressed for—”

“You’re wearing my favorite pants and that blouse is a perfect match to the sweater we just bought. We’ll take some together.” He promises as she watches him pop the tags off the sweater he’d bought himself, tucking it into the bag of knicknacks he’d been collecting for her all morning. He’d offered to let her buy it off him if she couldn’t settle on anything else and she’d reluctantly agreed. “It’ll be the only annoying coupley thing I’ll ask you to do.”

“In 2012?” She asks, unable to find another foothold in the conversation and he chuckles.

“It won’t be so bad.” He promises holding out his hand for her to take.

*

It’s not as bad as she’s expecting, the lights and backdrops are familiar equipment for any studio, hers or otherwise, but she’s distracted, constantly tracking the way Will moves around the room, leaning against the wall, straightening the pile of business cards on the counter.

“This way.” The woman suggests and Will looks up to see her watching him.

“Smile, Mac,” he suggests and she frowns more, smiling only when he laughs brightly, stepping gingerly onto the mat on the floor. “Let’s try a couple together.”

*

She pages through the thumbnails already impatient with the idea of having to pick something out. There’s a few she knows he’s going to like, one where she’d been caught about to smile and another when she’d looked up, face lit up when he’d stumbled over something by the door.

The ones of them together she picks at random, not looking too closely, adding quantities and sizes until she’s sure Will won’t complain she hadn’t left herself with enough options.

“I think there were some really good ones.” He assures her as they trudge back up the street and she forces herself to smile knowing he’s trying to reassure her.

“Yeah,” she heaves a sigh. “Did you still want to pick up groceries?”

*

She’d gotten up, slipping through the dark to sit cross-legged in the hall, the envelope Will had picked up that afternoon balanced on one knee, the frames and the gift bags she’d bought lined up beside her. One photo, one frame. Aside from the sizing, they’re all identical, so she’s fine slotting the photos into place, twisting the tiny clips to hold the backs on. She’s fine until she starts flipping them over, peeking occasionally as she slips them into the bags: his thumb resting on her chin, just below her bottom lip, fixing the lipbalm he’d smeared with his kiss; her eyes crinkled up in the corners, the two of them their faces side by side; the next one, both of them laughing, her face a little blurry as she leans forward caught up in whatever he’d said.

She shoves the bags and the unwrapped frames back into the bottom of the closet with clumsy fingers watching the way they tremble as she fumbles for the light switch, weaves her way through the kitchen, through the bedroom, into the bathroom.

Shaking. She’s seen this before, the shock of it, the wide eyes, the bone deep quivering.

She turns the faucet on but can’t make her hands slow down enough to draw the water up to her face so it trickles out, back down the drain while she stands there watching.

“Hey.” He steps into the halo of light around her, almost silent in the way that he moves, stepping up close, leaning into her so he can cup his hands under hers.

“I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared.” She whispers as he rubs his thumb against her palm.

“That’s OK. You’re OK.” He reminds her. “I’m right here with you. We’re in this together. OK?”

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t nod. She stares at their hands, watches the water cascade over their fingers until she can hear him breathing again. “She said she couldn’t leave him. Said she love— loved, she said—”

“OK.” He says softly. “OK. Shhh. Mac, hey.”

He keeps talking and she tries to focus on that, count the seconds like she had with so many frightened mothers, watch the counter superimposed on the inside of her eyelids, rapidly spinning numbers, another half-silent interview in those first few frustrating months before she’d learned to open up enough to get them to trust her, then later, the triumph of her success.

She wraps herself in that feeling, pulls her hands from under the water to tug his arms around her waist.

“This is you and me.” He’s saying as she leans into him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I could never,” he sighs into her hair. “It’s going to be OK.”

*

She’s up before him, worried they’re going to mess up the schedule they’d laid out. He’d suggested dinner before mass, but she knows it’s likely they’ll get distracted, miss one or the other, so she settles on lunch, the same way they’d settled on celebrating today instead of tomorrow on the holiday: pragmatically without any real argument to the contrary. She knew he wouldn’t mind and she likes the idea of having the time to tease him about the impending service, flash a couple of wicked smiles and see how long it took him to follow her back into the bedroom.

They’d have to exchange gifts at some point but she isn’t thinking about that as she starts in the kitchen. It’s already pushing toward noon despite the fact Will’s still asleep. The ham goes in the oven first, the ingredients for the rolls mixed and set aside to rise. The casserole and the potatoes can wait, so she rearranges the fridge a bit, lining up the ingredients for the eggnog so they can find them later and then hunts around for the appropriate serving platters, thankful he’d insisted on doing this here in his kitchen instead of leaving them crammed into hers.

Neither of them had suggested she do the cooking, Will had never seen her do more than boil water, but he hadn’t commented as she’d dropped items into the cart on Saturday, augmenting whatever menu he’d had in his head.

“Smells good.” He’s obviously just rolled out of bed, hair rumpled, t-shirt not quite straight, but he’s smiling bright-eyed as he wanders over to investigate. “Can I help with anything?”

“No,” she shakes her head, trying to shrug off a faint thrum of unease. “I used to do this a lot. You can make breakfast though. Your pancakes are heavenly.”

“Any other special requests?”

It’s not an odd turn of phrase, it’s one she’s heard from him before but it twists in her stomach, tied inexplicably to the smell of glazed ham and the feeling of dough stuck under her nails. It’s what her mom would say, teasing, when she refused to have an opinion on the menu, like she didn’t have a good reason not to, like somehow it’d matter if she did.

“Blueberry.” She stumbles for something thinking pie, thinking Christmas and Easter, thinking about the afternoons after her mom had gotten home from chemo, the weeks and months of school she’d missed trying desperately to keep the house in order when her mom couldn’t.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe, yeah,” She makes herself smile, “pancakes would be great.”

*

She watches the way his eyes sparkle as he unwraps the photos, carefully stacking the frames as she occasionally tears the wrapping paper off a pair of socks, a set of tinted lip balms, a book. She checks the latter for an inscription and, finding the inside page blank, sets it aside, as he refolds the last of the gift bags.

“There’s one more thing.” He reaches past her to fish a small box out from under the corner of the couch. “It was hiding.”

She frowns at it for a second, trying to decide if she remembers seeing it, if she’d knocked it there or if he’d hidden it there earlier wanting to make sure she waited to open it.

“What is it?”

“The other something I wanted to give you.” He confirms with a one-shouldered shrug as she picks it up.

She wants to shove it back under the couch. She wants to pretend neither of them knew it was there because she knows it isn’t the lingerie she’d been expecting but another gift of the sort he wouldn’t want to give her at the office, in front of Jim.

“It’s all right.” He says but she doesn’t know what he means by that.

She picks at the tape, stalling, breathing until she can make herself peel back the paper. It’s a slender cardboard box, one she knows is likely to contain jewelry but she’s still surprised to see it, the small gold bar nestled in cotton.

“I lost— the clasp—” she stutters, “I— we were in Islamabad. It fell. I never—”

“Jim mentioned that.”

“He,” she swallows a couple of times, letting the box slip from her fingers onto her lap. “What did he?”

“I asked him about the necklace you used to wear.”

She watches him scoot across the floor, drawing closer until he can reach to gently brush her hands, settle them in her lap as she stares at the necklace.

“You still reach for it sometimes.” He brushes a finger against the hollow of her throat, the warm spot where the necklace had sat for so many years. “More when we first met.”

She feels her fingers twitch wanting to move toward the necklace, pick it up, but she knows it isn’t the same, knows it can’t be, but that’s hard to reconcile with the way her heart is aching, her eyes watering. For so long she’d wished, she’d wanted, and she’d never thought— 

Her fingers skate over the gold, pluck at it until the charm flips and she freezes, blinks a couple of times and wipes at her eyes, rough and impatient, disbelieving. 

Jim couldn’t have known, she’d never mentioned it, never taken the necklace off so he couldn’t have seen it, but it’s there: her name and, not her birthday, but the day she turned eighteen: nine letters, two dots, six numbers. 

“I called around. It took a couple of weeks, but I found the guy who made the first one. He sounds like he’s a hundred and ten. He keeps records like he is too.”

He had to have worked backward from her dad; found the town; then Fran somehow, miraculously; called the local paper then the one in Lincoln; found someone, who?, that might’ve known which jeweler she’d used, or at least where to start; found, through no small miracle, that the place was still open. It seems impossible, so impossible, but he’d done it.

“You.” She breathes out and then bites her lip to stop from crying. It’s too overwhelming, too unexpected, too much after the photos and last night, this morning, the way he’s still smiling softly even though she feels like she’s being torn apart. She knows it’s supposed to be a good feeling, a happy one, knows he expects that it is, but it feels more like she’s being rubbed raw, yanked and twisted.

“It’s OK if you’re upset.” He says like he thinks she might want his permission, but she knows he doesn’t mind, not after all the other times she’s failed to hold herself together. 

“I wasn’t sure.” He pauses to consider the words as he wraps his hand over hers. “I wasn’t sure if I should. Jim said you were pretty upset when you lost it, that maybe— but every time I talked to someone, heard the way they mentioned the two of you, I, I wanted you to have that back, even if only a bit.”

“I do.” She swallows, but she knows what he means, that Fran was Fran, that Fran would always be Fran. “I made her, I made her casserole.”

The words come out and she attempts a smile, letting it wobble when he squeezes her hand.

“I knew that wasn’t a James Harper special.”

“Was it bad?” She can’t remember him seeming to dislike it but she’s suddenly self-conscious, wondering.

“Pumpkin and bacon in a pasta bake?” He questions and she feels her smile broaden unconsciously, realizing how absurd the idea was. Jim might go for a pepperoni pizza casserole, but the minute someone put chicken and bacon anywhere near a squash he’d be ordering takeout.

“I wanted, something...”

“I think it was a good idea.”

“Yeah?” She isn’t sure he means it, but he seems to and she trusts herself enough to believe that. “I think this was a good idea too.” She brushes her finger over the corner of the box. “She’d appreciate it.”

***

 

“You know he could call you.”Jim says like it’s just occurred to him, like he hasn’t been trying to find a way to sneak that into the conversation for the last few hours.

She knows what he’s getting at, what he thinks he knows better than to say, that she needs to talk to someone and if getting her spectacularly drunk— he’s managed that twice already— hasn’t worked there has to be something better than her crying quietly into the silence after the the voicemail recording on Will’s phone.

“You’re being an ass.” She tells him like she thinks he might need the reminder, wiping at her face and dropping her phone back into her lap. “Stop getting me drunk and I’ll stop crying.”

“Mmm.” He takes another sip of his beer before glancing over at her. They both know she’s lying but neither of them are willing to concede that point yet. It’s dangerous territory, trampling on ground that could send her over the edge. “Coop tell you Nat has a date for prom?”

“I told you they couldn’t hate the new girl forever.”

“Pruitt’s a douche.”

“I wasn’t talking about—”

“Yes you were.” She cuts him off grabbing his beer.

“Mac, fuck, seriously?” He reaches for the bottle, groaning as she swallows the last of beer before setting the bottle beside the others at her feet.

“Everything’s a metaphor with you now. Go get yourself another beer.”

“I think I’ll head out instead.”

“Jim.” She protests wanting to tell him to be serious, but he isn’t pouting, he looks unphased as he gets to his feet.

“You’re not in the mood to talk and it’s almost 2 a.m.” He points out. “I’ll see you in the morning and you can keep telling me how much of an idiot I am while Charlie yells at us both.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“Most of the time.” He grins at her, suddenly generous and she smiles back. “Go to bed.”

“Yeah.”

“Mac.”

“Bed.” She agrees still holding onto her smile, clinging almost desperately to the feeling it’s supposed to bring. “I will I just— you’re not an idiot.”

“I know. Promise me you’ll get some sleep.”

“Jim, I’m not—” Things aren’t as bad as he thinks they are. That’s what she wants to say, that’s what she usually says, but it isn’t true this time. Things are worse, so much worse and she doesn’t know how to tell him that. “Pruitt— There’s a lot of work that—”

“Yeah. I know, but sleep first. I can’t be scraping you off the ceiling tomorrow because you overdid it on the caffeine. I’m planning on wearing my new shoes and I don’t want them getting dirty.”

“I’ll make sure to spill my lunch on them.” She quips as he steps out into the hall and he sighs.

“Good night, Mac.”

“Good night bat boy.” She calls out as she hears his footsteps in the hall, hears them falter. He won’t come back to set her straight, he’s right, it is late, he should’ve been home hours ago, but he’d be laughing in the morning, ready with whatever retort he’d been holding on to and she’d need that, she knew that. She’d need that more than anything

*

She’s not as drunk as she thinks she ought to be given how miserable she feels, but Jim’s left her alone with Coop and it’d never felt right to get trashed when Coop was around. He hadn’t been her boss for years now, had been as much friend as boss before that, but she still let him boss her around a bit, let him serve her rum and Cokes with the slightest splash of rum.

“Did Jim go shopping?” She waves her glass around as she swallows the rest of the drink. “I didn’t know we had rum.”

“I raided the minibar at the hotel,” Coop scoots down from his seat on her kitchen counter to come and take her glass. “Jim said you weren’t picky.”

“You already knew that.”

“Mmmm.” Coop agrees. “Nat’s going to be pleased.”

“That you’re the cool dad raiding the minibar?”

“Maybe not. Was being a teenager always that weird?” He asks as she laughs at the idea of Nat, studious awkward Nat, thinking her middle aged father was cool for making off with a bunch of complimentary liquor.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You sprang forth from the womb fully formed.” Coop joins in with her laughter. “Why the hell hasn’t Jim started calling you Athena?”

“No one did me a favor and wacked my father in the head.”

Coop mistakes her moment of candor for dry humor and shakes his head, still chuckling as he takes a seat next to her on the couch. “You haven’t seen her prom pictures.”

*

They’re still going through photos when Coop stops to call Jim, find out what the hang up is because it doesn’t take an hour to get across town and back at this time of night, and she reaches for her own phone, fidgets with it.

She’s still calling Will, still listening to the one aborted ring before she’s sent straight to voicemail, the same dry recording that makes her heart ache. 

She should let go, she knows that. She should let go and move on, let it all go and find something else, let Coop find her something else even if, lately, he’s seemed more interested in pointing out what was sure to be Charlie’s imminent retirement.

“Five minutes.” Coop declares falling back onto the couch as she hits the speed dial button before she can think better of it.

She needs to hear his voice again, just this once. She knows it won’t be the last time, can’t bear the thought that it might be, but she dials anyway, waiting as the phone rings. She knows she could’ve asked him to call her for her birthday, knows she could cry at him instead of into the empty space behind his name, but the timing would never be right and she couldn’t put that on him, not when he’d be so powerless to stop it.

“McAvoy.”

“Will?” She knows it’s him. It couldn’t be anyone else, not with that undercurrent of amusement, not with his voice, but it can’t be, she knows it can’t be. Inmates weren’t allowed cell phones, they weren’t allowed calls this late in the day, but she wanted it to be him. She wanted it to be him. “Will.”

“Mac.”

“What?” She swallows and tries to find the words to string together while he waits.

“Go let Jim in.”

“He has a— you can hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Will?”

The knocking she’d been ignoring picks up again and she gets up off the couch making sure to avoid Coop’s knees in her haste as she makes her way to the door, impatient with the interruption.

“Oh good, it’s you.” Jim presses at the door and she lets it go, lets him push it open as he moves past her carrying several bags of what she’s assuming is an assortment of gifts and liquor. 

“You’re late.” She says unnecessarily and hears a chuckle, a familiar chuckle, on the phone and— she looks up, past where Jim had been standing to the wall across the hall, the wall where Will’s leaning, smiling, waiting.

“Hey, Mac.”

“Hi.” She swallows, frowning a bit, trying to sort through the implications, the ins and outs of his sudden appearance.

“Happy birthday. Sorry I’m a little late.”

“Oh.” She shakes her head, not sure if she’s excusing him or still trying to figure out what’s going on. “Did you want to come in?”

“Sure.” He nods, straightening. “Mind if I use your shower?”

“It’s,” she gestures toward the back of the apartment, still watching him, unable to look away until he steps forward and she turns and heads back to the couch.

*

He smells like her shampoo, not the teasing tormenting scent that’s been haunting her for weeks, the bottle of his shampoo in the corner of her shower with the top still popped up, the room steaming up, flooded with the smell every time she turned the shower on.

“That’s George?” She points to the blond boy standing next to Nat like she can’t already recognize him, the scrawny teen with the doe-eyes.

“Yeah.” Coop flips through a couple of photos. “That’s a better one of the two of them.”

“He looks sweet.”

“He seems reasonably smart.” Coop agrees and she chuckles as Will settles in beside her in the spot Jim’s vacated, close enough to see over her shoulder, but not too close, not touching her.

“There’s cake.”

She ignores Jim and swipes to the next photo, bopping Nat on the head before scrolling through several more.

“Mac.”

“Not interested.” She stops at a photo of a red-glowing eyed Nat. “Was this the same night? Midnight waffles?” She attempts a guess.

“After party.” Coop grouses. “She came home at 3 a.m.”

***

 

She’s covered the desk with scraps of paper, scattered legal pads, and several volumes of Shakespeare. She doesn’t need any of it, she’s known what she needs to say for weeks, but she feels better having it there.

It still feels terrifying, still feels like an impossibility, but she’d known what Coop had been getting at, what he’d been suggesting since he’d first mentioned Charlie retiring, since that first afternoon when she’d sat with him in a bar in DC after meeting Pruitt and had carefully unloaded, as much as she could, knowing Will wouldn’t agree, not completely, and that Charlie wouldn’t listen, not after she’d refused to attend the Correspondents dinner, refused to let any of the staff attend.

Saturnalia they’d said and they’d meant it, she’d still meant it. She’d been furious at the time that Will had suggested she concede a bit, pretend at least to cede some ground, give Charlie something to work with, to smooth things over. There hadn’t been anything to cede, not then, not when she’d already agreed to meet the man, had met the man despite the fact she’d known he had no interest in her, still had no interest in her all these weeks later, but she knows Coop’s been talking to him, not talking her up, but presenting Pruitt with what looked like a series of compromises, solutions to problems he couldn’t ignore.

This wasn’t new territory for Coop, but she’d still been surprised by how certain he’d seemed that Pruitt would entertain the idea of Charlie retiring. She couldn’t understand how he could be so sure until he’d said Lucus, until it’d come out that he knew Pruitt the same way he knew Reese. 

That wasn’t a world she understood, an upperclass old boys club meant to make the rich richer. She wasn’t interested in understanding and she knew Coop knew that, knew he hadn’t mentioned it because it made her uncomfortable. The idea that this promotion, a promotion this big, might not be based on merit but on a series of old, begrudgingly nurtured connections made her stomach twist.

She’d never been happy taking a promotion, had always argued about it, fretted over it. She’d taken the promotion to EP without much protest desperate to stay overseas, but the others, the shift from foreign correspondent to field producer had been riddled with the same angst and anxiety she felt now. She liked her job, loved it, but Coop hadn’t been wrong when he’d said she couldn’t keep fighting with Charlie and with Pruitt, and she knew she’d never be able to sit down and shut up, not long enough to keep her current job, not if she wanted to wait for something else to open up in New York. 

And she’d have to wait. She couldn’t leave Will— even if she felt like she still was, not completely but in a significant way— she had to stay in New York and Jim, she knew Jim deserved the promotion, more than deserved the promotion, and she knew he’d never get it if he insisted on following her, if she’d have to vacate the spot for him to fill it.

It’s still not an easy decision, still not one she’s talked to anyone about, which is why she was up here alone, in Charlie’s office, drinking the bourbon he kept stashed in the locked drawer of his desk while everyone else was outside picking over the last of the barbeque while they waited for it to get dark, the kids hooting and yelling as they chased each other around the yard, overexcited, waiting for their sparklers.

She’d have to go down and join them eventually she figures, although no one had commented on her increasingly frequent departures, the trips she’d taken up here to take a sip or two, the moments she’d spent pacing the empty rooms.

She’ been up here alone for almost an hour now so she’s not expecting anyone to come looking for her, not expecting anyone to know where to come looking for her when she hears the stairs creak.

She flips the last of the legal pads over knowing it’s him even before he steps into the doorway. She’s still unsettled by his presence, still noticing the way he ebbs and flows from her awareness. She’s still unsettled by how badly she wants to keep him close even when she can’t, even when she can’t quite let herself let him that close, not when she knows how much it hurts to lose him, even for a while, even if not completely.

Tonight though she’s been drinking enough, is just tipsy enough that she can push that anxiety away, can smile at him when he pauses to consider the mess she’s made.

“Confidential or top secret?” He inquires as she steps toward him ignoring everything but the bottle in his hand.

“Coop suggested I bring a bottle for Charlie.” He’s considering her now, “and I’m beginning to understand why.”

“I’m not drunk.” She’s a little irritated by the implication, a little perturbed that he seems to care.

“No, but you’ve been at it awhile.” He says gently, shifting the bottle to his other hand before she can grab it. “Do you know where the key is so we can put this away?”

“You could leave it downstairs.”

“Mac.”

“He leaves his key the same place you do, but you already knew that.”

She watches him sit, hovers as he unlocks the drawer and slides the unopened bottle in, hears him chuckle before he reaches to hand her the other bottle, the one she’s been drinking. “You might as well finish that off.”

There’s a decent swig left in the bottle, just the one, but she pours it into the glass she’d been using anyway and hands it to Will, slipping sideways into his lap as he replaces the key in the top drawer.

She’d intended to let him finish the drink but she takes it when he hands it to her, takes a sip, the smallest one she can manage, wanting to draw it out, wanting the excuse to keep him close, wanting to enjoy it. They’d been this close, closer, a few times since he’d gotten back a week and a half ago, but it’d been too frantic, too performative, sex as a drug not as a comfort, that she hadn’t relished in it, hadn’t felt much of anything as she’d let it numb her, push away the constant aching pain, the worry and the doubt the last few months had brought.

She leans her head against his shoulder, leans into the quiet comfort and lets her eyes slip shut as his hand brushes the side of her thigh, the other resting beside her knee, his arm heavy against her shins.

“You going to fall asleep on me?” He asks and she sighs offering him a tiny smile, faint and slow. “Yeah?” He asks and she nods.

*

Eventually she lets him talk her into heading to the car. She curls into the passenger seat as he leaves the A/C running, his sweatshirt tucked between her head and the window as he ducks out back to say their goodbyes. 

She’s asleep by the time he gets back, asleep through the drive to the city, waking groggily, stumbling occasionally as she makes her way to the elevator. She has bleery memories of stumbling into his apartment and straight to bed, but even that feels fake and hazy when she wakes the next morning to the smell of pancakes.

“There’s cereal if you’d rather.” Will appears with a tray at the foot of the bed.

“No.” She yawns as he sets it by her knee then scampers over her to the other side of the bed. “Will.” She groans but he’s laughing to himself, delighted. 

“Sleeping beauty’s not awake yet.” He’s sympathetic, teasing, but it chafes, the sarcasm he isn’t wielding still present for her.

“Run out of glass slippers?” She snaps reflexively, defensive, yanking a pillow over her head.

“Hey.” His voice turns soft. “I can take my pancakes and shove them,” he pauses to consider, “in the fridge.”

He’s expecting some sort of comeback, something to let him know what she’s thinking, a barb, or an apology, but she’s quiet. This isn’t some sort of fairytale— he is, he’s perfect, god he’s perfect— but everything else is a fucking nightmare. She hasn’t slept in weeks, hasn’t spent the night and woken up in his bed since he’d been back, hadn’t slept much before then. She’s exhausted, confused, pushing and pulling, torn in two. She doesn’t want to start a fight, doesn’t want to sound like the spoiled brat she’d so often been accused of being.

He would never say that, would never think that, she knows that, knows it’d never been true to begin with, but that doesn’t help now when she wants to apologize for snapping at him, for ruining his fun, but she’s gotten so used to being unapologetic, to numbing herself to the inevitable disappointment that it caused that she can’t.

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny.” But it was, she knows he thinks it was in a cheesy sort of way.

“It was a little funny.” She’s trying, she’s really trying, she hopes he knows that because it feels impossible, feels so impossible on top of everything else, but she doesn’t want to hurt him, can’t bear the thought of disappointing him.

*

It’s easier once she’s out of bed, once she’s literally on her feet, with a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal, a parfait abomination Jim always called it: plain yogurt and cereal: corn flakes, cocoa puffs, granola, she wasn’t picky.

Will had offered to make her more pancakes, make her something else, but she likes the cereal, likes that she doesn’t have to worry about it getting soggy, soaking up too much syrup while she combs through the mess she’d brought with her from Charlie’s.

Will gives her space, more it seems because of the scattered papers than because he seems to think she needs it. He’s close by, silently checking in as she reads through the notes, the bullet points that lead nowhere, the quotes she’d pulled seemingly from thin air.

“Need to know,” she says deciding as she reads through the letter again.

“What?”

“Its classification. It’s not— last night you said, top secret, it’s not— you, could you,” she holds the page out, almost pulling it back when he reaches for it but he’s going to find out eventually, she’s going to have to talk to him about it, explain it to him, explain how much things had changed since he’d left, because there’s not much that’s stayed the same and he needs to know that, even if she’d rather not have to be the one to lay it all out for him.

She pulls away, getting to her feet when he moves to sit beside her and she hears him set the paper aside, hears it rustle against he pages of the magazine he’d left open on the end table.

“Mac,” he waits until she turns around to gesture, beckon her closer as he tries again, “Mac.”

He wants her there, wants her closer, but she’s aching for a drink, for a way to put a wall between him and the ache in her chest.

She knows it’s a habit she’s going to have to break, one she shouldn’t have picked up to begin with, but it’d been too easy to twist the habit around, stuff the words behind the drinks Jim kept buying, stuff the bottles of beer into the chinks in her armor.

And the sex, the draw of it, the pull she’s feeling even now, the need for distraction was new. Before it had settled her, let her see the contours of the walls that had so often closed around her, but those walls were gone, they’d been gone for awhile now, the box metaphor she’d held on to so tightly no longer worked to explain the way she fell in on herself keeping away or kept away by everything else, everyone else.

She shakes her head, no, but he still reaches for her, still waits for her to shift closer, take half a step and then another until he can almost reach her.

“Here.”

She’s watched him dial, knows the phone must be ringing, but she still hesitates to take it from him, still holds it away from her ear until she hears the line click over.

She should’ve known he would think of this, the familiar voicemail greeting the same beep, the same rugged breathing too loud in her own ears. She hands him the phone too shaken up by the still empty space behind the end of the message to say anything, but she’s closer now, close enough that he can hook his arm behind her knees and draw her down toward himself.

“Sometimes hell is other people.” He offers softly.

And sometimes it’s the voices in your head she doesn’t finish for him. “Charlie wants to retire. Pruitt wants to fire me. Coop thinks—” she sighs hand fluttering briefly between them.

“Any particular order?”

It’s not an unusual enquiry, rank these so we can deal with them, so I can help fix it, but it’s enough for her to know he hadn’t looked at the letter, that he’d been watching her, unconcerned with everything else.

“Charlie,” she says and then tries again, “Charlie, he— He,” she sighs as Will nods.

“He’s run out of steam.”

“He keeps— he’s not—”

“You think he’s finally going to listen to Nancy?”

“Coop.” She corrects before she considers that that might not make much sense to him. “Coop thinks he should, and I should. He thinks Lucus,” she spits out the name, “he’ll agree. He’s in a bunch of shit.” And I’m a convenient out. She lets the last part sit unsaid for the time being.

“Are you suggesting you might have a reason to boss me around from now on?” He seems genuinely interested, intrigued in a way she can’t understand.

“I didn’t know I needed one.”

“That’s true. Neal will appreciate—”

She smiles at that, shakes her head a bit at the thought of Neal’s relief, now that he was back, now that he might have a clear chain of command, less back and forth, more support. She likes the idea of that. She’s always been driven more by ideal than by anything else, but she’d always known she needed good staff; she couldn’t get anywhere without them.

She knows Coop had used that to sway her, knew Will was, unintentionally, covering the same ground, reminding her that it wouldn’t be all bad, that more power meant more responsibility of the sort she wanted, the sort she needed if she wanted to keep News Night on its feet. She needed her staff, needed Will behind her more than she needed Charlie before her. She knew that, but she still balked at the idea of losing News Night in the way she would, that tangible connection to the show she loved.

“We should’ve announced it last night. We could have had a massive, raucous toast.”

“It’s not,” she glances at him, reaches for the letter.

“Official?”

“Yeah.” She drops it in his lap, waits for him to pick it up but he leaves it there.

“Jim doesn’t know.”

 

“What if I’d said no? He deserves the promotion.”

“I don’t think he’d be bothered one way or the other.”

“That’s not—”

“Mac.”

She lets him quiet her, lets the protest die because she’d been having the same argument with herself for weeks. She’d needed to talk to someone, needed a neutral party but she hadn’t wanted to bring Jim into it, hadn’t wanted to dangle the promotion in front of him then pull it away, because she’d wanted to say no. There was still a part of her that wanted to say no, a part of her that didn’t believe that she could pull this off.

She’d beaten News Night into shape, but she’d had Charlie, had had Will and, in a way, the Lansing’s support. Now that would have to be her job, Will would be as stubbornly resolute as he’d always been and she’d never doubt Jim, but it seemed like an impossible task: arguing with Pruitt day in and day out, although she had been doing that, doing just that for weeks.

She’d all but taken the promotion already, she knows that, knows Jim’s been more of an EP than she has and it’d be easier with Will there to yell when Pruitt saw her gender before her job title. She knew Don wasn’t interested in the show, even if it was technically a promotion. She hadn’t asked him, but he had his own project now, his own quiet mutiny to build. She’s known all this but she’s been hesitating, waiting, for what she isn’t sure.

“We could remedy that tonight, unless you think we need to time the trip from your new office to mine first. I’m betting five minutes tops, but I know you hate the idea of me spending an hour of my day in elevators.”

“Will.” She smiles because she knows what he’s suggesting, that he might just use the excuse to shirk his work. He wouldn’t, not really, they both knew that, but she also knew she’d be teasing him about it when the time came. “What about tonight?”

“I know ten trips sounds like—”

“They’ve invented this thing called the telephone,” she cuts him off, still smiling before insisting, “what about tonight?”

“We could stop by the—”

“Nice try,” she knows he’s trying not to say something, although he’s not trying very hard to hide the fact with the way he’s only half hiding his smile. “What about tonight?”

“You didn’t really hear that.”

“It just kind of slipped out.” She suggests and he shrugs.

“Will.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Clearly.”

“I mean for later. Jim—” he winces, “I promised not to ruin it.”

“Will.”

“You have to be surprised.”

“I am.” She insists but he doesn’t look convinced.

“Later.”

“OK.”

“I think Tamara’s bringing a pinata and Gary said something about—”

“Will.” She drags his name out a bit in warning and he stops. “Did you, are you throwing me a party?”

“I promised I’d throw you— Yes,” he agrees when she raises her eyebrows, “but I never said that, all right? Jim was five seconds away from making me sign a nondisclosure. What?”

She looks away realizing she’s been staring. “I didn’t think.”

“No one knows, we weren’t specific about the date, in case— I know it’s not something you advertise.”

“You think—” she stops realizing she sounds upset and not at all confused like she was. He had promised her a party, teased her about it, insisting even as he’d gently kissed her goodbye that he’d be back in plenty of time. His timing had been off, was still off, but he’d been serious about the party. “People are going to be there.”

“That’s the general idea.”

He’s smiling although she’s crying, crying because out of all of this, that’s the one thing she hadn’t expected. “You told them—”

“No presents, attendance totally optional. Sloan’s picking out a cake from—” He stops when she leans over to wrap her arms around his neck.

“I’ve never had—”

“I know.” He wraps his arms around her. “You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you interested:  
> I imagine [dress one](https://www.macys.com/shop/product/sl-fashions-sequined-lace-fit-flare-dress?ID=2945125&CategoryID=71971) and [dress two](https://www.luulla.com/product/656815/2016-custom-charming-royal-blue-prom-dress-sexy-halter-evening-dress-shining-beading-prom-dress) being something like that (and bonus [adorable outfit inspo](http://hercanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Winter-Work-Outfits-for-Women-17.jpg))  
> I don't have enough to put together a full mix but Normal by Sasha Sloan, Jericho by Ruston Kelly, and Yours by Ella Henderson would all make it on the list


End file.
